Avis Metacritic

It's by far the funniest and warmest movie Araki has ever made, with much less juvenile angst and much more command of his craft.

Kaboom is pure fantasy in every sense of the word: It's a riff on sexy, sassy teen movies and conspiracy thrillers that at times seems to exist only so Araki can get his beautiful young cast to strip off their clothes and pair off in every conceivable combination, just as he used to do in his earlier, more scandalous films.

Araki constructs the hot-blooded Kaboom as a high-wire act without a safety net. Go with it.

Kaboom does have an excellent punchline, although even at 86 minutes it feels too long-mainly because Araki can't help letting his camera linger over his performers. Hard to blame him-he's assembled the best-looking cast in town and it's largely his gaga appreciation that makes the movie so much fun.

Kaboom's one-liners are snappy, knowing, and unexpected.

Araki's got a certain garish flare to his delivery that those more patient with the content will find appealing and Thomas Dekker offers an engaging performance.

While Araki has finally perfected a shoegazey visual aesthetic that's simultaneously sensual and too cool for school, it's hard not to feel that his reprise of yesterday's greatest snits borders on being stuck in a rut.

Chaotic, trifling, oddly likable film.

The good-natured cast helps distract from a barely sketched plot and outrageously cheap production values.

Call it "The Doom Generation II." Gregg Araki's Kaboom returns to the trippy ways of his 1995 erotic head trip.