Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

Probably the best part of this flick was waiting to see who the next person was to show up for a cameo. Paul Rudd wasn't his usual funny self (not his fault), but Christopher Meloni wins the award for being the best crazy guy with the prize winning crazy faces. The whole premises of the movie was of course, very stoopid.

Although not a masterpiece, the original movie from 2001 is a charming and entertaining one. It was funny. The sequels have been disappointing, with every installment progressively worse.

Everything about Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later screams "first draft". It's like they were spit balling in the writer's room saying "wouldn't it be funny if" and it never progressed beyond that step. I have witnessed that firsthand on comedy projects I have worked on where the writers are howling with laughter and slapping each other on the back, just to have everything fall flat when you shoot it and hand it over to the poor editor who is the one who has got to try and save it.

Perhaps one problem is that the core croup come out of sketch comedy via The State. There is no narrative flow to Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. It's easier to mask that in a 90 minute movie, like the original, but when you stretch it for 8 episodes (or rather 16 episodes, since both Netflix shows have the same structure) it becomes quite tedious.

One show also made by people from The State that manage to pull this off beautifully is Reno 9/11 (one of my favorite shows). But the structure of that show (essentially a COPS parody) lends itself perfectly to the sketch format, it doesn't have the need for the same narrative flow that Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later aspires to.

But the cardinal sin with Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later is that it unlike the original movie, isn't very funny. Most ideas are half baked, and the actors are going through the motions. It didn't help that every time someone shouted "Walla-walla-hoo!" I wanted to kick their teeth in.

Perhaps the original movie was lightning in a bottle.

Most accurate depiction of Ronald Reagan I've seen to date.

I feel this was truly written for fans of the film, whereas First Day of Camp was written for kids who didn't really understand the film.

Best of all, pretty much every character from the movie is back. If you love the film, this is worth a go.

Well, being a fan of the movie and the series, I felt a little disappointed with the last installment of the series.

First of all, because they added some unnecessary characters, like Susie's (Amy Poehler) British and unfunny boyfriend. A new yuppie couple (Mark and Vivian) who is very intimate with J.J. (Zak Orth), and Coop's (Michael Showalter) fianceé. They were a nuisance, and I felt like their scenes were just not interesting or relevant to the whole plot.

I found some contradictions, because in the original film, McKinley and Ben are very closeted about their relationship, and they were very open in these episodes. Let's remember that this was the height of the Aids scare (before the movies like "Philadelphia" helped mainstream people to sympathize with HIV positive gays), and being openly gay was not so accepted at the time (especially in a place with children).

Susie and Ben were very close (they ran the drama classes) while they barely interact this time.

What was missing this time, were the children themselves. Despite one teenager alpha male (Deegs), there were no child humor like we saw in the movie and series, which used to make me laugh a lot.

There were some plot holes like what happened to Gail's former partner (in the end of the movie, she gets engaged to a 11 year old kid), what happened to the robot guy (who in the movie was J.J. brother), and in the end, there is a scene on the beach that I won't explain because there are spoilers.

I had a good time watching it, even though I think that I was hoping that Coop's love story would have ended differently.

The best of all for me is the bromance between Victor and Neil. The last being the professional sidekick of a person who is actually below him.

Watch, but keep expectations low.