Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland

A Little Out There, A Lot of Chaos, But Still Got That BMS Heart

Let's not pretend it lived up to the show - because it didn't. Rise of Thadland is what happens when you let the party run a little too long and the keg's been tapped one too many times. It's over-the-top, self-aware, and completely unhinged - which is BMS, to be fair. But the difference here? It starts to feel like a parody of itself instead of the cult classic that earned its name.

What Worked Thad Castle (Alan Ritchson) is still an unstoppable force of absurdity. He is the movie, and without him, this whole thing would collapse like a beer pong table under a linebacker.

Moments of nostalgia hit right - especially if you were ride-or-die for the show. The characters still have chemistry, and when the jokes land, they really land.

The party scenes were turned up to 1000 - wild, ridiculous, and basically a fever dream with glitter and steroids.

What Fell Flat The plot? Barely there. It's a vibe more than a story.

Too many gags pushed the envelope without a real payoff. It was chaos without the clever.

Missed that balance the show had - where the insanity still had some kind of anchor. This one drifted a bit too far off the rails.

Bottom Line

It's not terrible. It's just not Blue Mountain State at its best. Think of it like that one last round at the bar you probably didn't need - fun in the moment, but not something you'd call a classic the next day.

Still good. Still got laughs.

But the original series? That was legendary.

I never even knew this existed - though to be fair now with the Reacher tv show it does make sense to bring this back to those who missed out on this. So as you can tell I have never seen the tv show, but since this was part of a deal with the streaming service I opted to watch it. And I'm fairly certain this works well even without having seen the show. Although I guess I would have been more in the know if I had.

Whatever you think of the man or the G. O. A. T (pun intended, you know if you've seen it) - the humor is quite gross at places to say the least. Now you either stoop down to that level and get jiggy with it or you will hate this and be annoyed by it. But the actors are really good in it. They really just let themselves lose and roll with the flow. I mean acting the way they do ... just plain crazy. There are more than a few cringe worthy moments and even "hotter" moments are intercut with something completely ridiculous. So while any of the females (and a few of the males) would be able to attend a model/walkway event, this is not meant to titilate you as much. And don't expect too much in the nudity department. There is a bit - no pun intended, especially to the one male nude scene. I might even watch the tv show one day ... why not? Even if I was never in a fraternity and I don't believe this would be something I could do. It's just a movie, right? Never forget that.

First of all, I've seen the series about 10 times, I'm a huge fan of BMS. Therefore I was very excited about the movie.

First of all, I'm not saying that the movie is not funny. It IS funny but there are some scenes that makes me want to thank Spike TV that they didn't let all the weird ideas of Romanski & Eric Falconer appear on the TV screen (Sammy & the Goat).

My problem is, that we didn't get what we were promised in the kickstarter video. We didn't see Thad graduate and go into the NFL. We didn't see Alex graduate and "fulfill his destiny on and off the field" Radon's and Shilo's "comeback" was like the most disappointing thing in the movie Plus, they've said that they would shoot the film on the same locations, where they had the series. I understand why they had to make a new goat house, but it just doesn't feel the same.

As they've said, if the movie will be a success, the series might come back. I hope if they do a season 4, they will do a different story, or just make some twist to make this movie forgotten (maybe that it all was just Thad's dream)

The Rise of Thadland is a fantastic example of trying to make something a more extreme version of an already extreme concept. Another example of this is NPH as Barney in later seasons of HIMYA. When HIMYA found out people loved Barney, well they tried to make him more Barney-ish. It became very hard for the audience to view Barney as redeemable after this. When you make yourself a parody of yourself you risk becoming unrelatable and annoying.

BMS took characters balancing on the edge and gave them a shove with a Mack truck. It was like adding speed to an energy drink and wondering what went wrong. All of your characters became like the extreme guys from Harold and Kumar, and nobody likes those guys.

This never seemed possible, but The Rise of Thadland is an even worse comedy than The Hangover Part II. It is raunchy only for the sake of trying to be funny, it is disgusting only for the sake of attempting to create shock humor, and there just simply isn't the energy in this movie which the television show had to offer.

The premise is so straightforward and simple that it gets to be a bore right after Thadland actually becomes a thing. Moran needs to win over Thad for him to buy the goathouse so it doesn't get taken away for them. Thad's request is simple: throw an awesome party for him and he'll put up enough money to win the goathouse over in the auction. The bulk of the movie is this party Moran agrees to throw, making most of the humor in the movie drug-related. We watch people trip out on drugs for the comedy, which ends up being a bore and not funny at all. Also, it is clear which part of the movie has an extended nc-17 clip in the bonus features, and it is too disgusting to imagine how the nc-17 version would have looked and not funny at all.

Of course Alan Ritchson as Thad shines as the star of the movie, though he is not the protagonist. He delivers the same goof ball we are all fond of in the television show, but the script just didn't allow him to shine AS MUCH as he did in the television series. The best moments focus around him, but sadly there are less than a handful of these moments.

There is no way that anything released in 2016 will be as terrible as this film.

1.0/4.0