Fanboys

Here is a film for the Star Wars geeks out there and only them. The story follows a group of five Star Wars obsessed friends in 1998 setting off on their own journey across the country to break in George Lucas's ranch and steal a copy of PHANTOM MENACE for an early screening. The original motivation for the endeavor is that one of the friends, Linus (Chris Marquette), has cancer and might not be around for it's theatrical release. It's a nice touch that could've added extra meaning behind the crazy plan of breaking into Lucas's home, but unfortunately its a fact that's breezed over and rarely mentioned over the course of the film. There had been reports of consistent trouble in the post-production process and studio interference that resulted in a lot of the cancer subplot being removed; if so, that's a shame because I think it could've only strengthened the plot, putting more meaning into their drastic actions.

Nearly all of the humor in the film is related to the original epic trilogy and, while casual fans will understand a good deal of the references, I'm sure even more of the jokes will go right over their heads. A lot of the laughs come from throwbacks to iconic moments (the malfunctioning hyperdrive on the Falcon/Hutch's "lightspeed" on the van failing to function) and from the cameos scattered throughout the movie. All the best parts of the film are from the cameos dropping by in every other scene: Danny Trejo, Seth Rogen (in not one, but three bit parts), Ethan Suplee, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, and a few key cameos that I'm not going to spoil here for those who plan to see the movie (the best being the "inside man" who supplies the information to get into Lucas's ranch).

The cameos really steal the show in this movie (and there's practically one in every other scene) but the core cast certainly does a great job on their own. The central group of actors do such a good job and appear to be having so much fun that I wouldn't be surprised if they were Star Wars geeks off-set as well. It was a good idea casting actors who could almost be considered unknowns, most of them recognizable for past projects but far from being big names (with exceptions). Sam Huntington is the team's straight-man, Eric, who abandoned his friends after high school in favor of a job with his father's used car lot. Chris Marquette is Linus, the cancer-stricken friend providing the backbone for the whole motivation of the film; despite his cancer subplot being brushed under the carpet, his long-standing disappointment with Eric over giving up on their dream to start their own comic remains as the main point of contention to add some sort of conflict to their trip. Dan Fogler is easily the funniest cast member as the friend who continues to live in his mom's garage (sorry, "carriage house") and has the souped-up Star Wars van complete with R2-D2 poking out the top. Finally, Jay Baruchel as über-nerd Windows and Zoe Bell as the fangirl with an attitude round of the rest of the team.

The movie is funny but the problem lies in that it targets a niche audience. People who aren't at least casual fans of the Star Wars movies might watch this and wonder what everyone else is laughing at. It's funny enough for us fans though that it makes for an entertaining movie the first time through, but repeated viewings don't stand up as well because the cameo surprises are old news and the trivia moments don't hold up.

An easy way to measure how much you will or won't enjoy "Fanboys" is how closely you fit to the titular category. The more of a Star Wars fan you are and the more your gender and maturity is on par with 'boy,' the more you'll like this ode to Star Wars fans.

The premise of this film is excellent: In 1998, six months before the scheduled release of "Star Wars Episode I" a group of fanboy friends in their 20-somethings road trip to Skywalker Ranch to try and steal a rough cut of the movie because one of them has a terminal illness and won't live to see the release. The execution, however, is spotty.

The movie is a Star Wars-themed version of "Road Trip," with the guys heading across America in a van and stopping along the way solely to buy some time before they get to the ranch. My guess would be that Ernest Cline and Dan Pulick are fanboys themselves who came up with the premise of stealing Episode I and then had to find a way to actually make it work. Therefore, the guys stop off in Iowa where the character of Captain Kirk from the Star Trek franchise was born to antagonize some Trekkies, they get caught at a gay biker bar and they have to go to Las Vegas to get security clearance to the ranch from an insider.

The main character and the story are not all that strong, but the small tributes, spoofs and cameos all related to the Star Wars universe is what makes "Fanboys" entertaining. Therefore, the more you know Star Wars -- things like thermal detonators and that Chewbacca is from Kashik -- the more you love "Fanboys."

In addition to appearances from a few notable actors from the Star Wars franchise, director Kyle Newman does some nice homages to Lucas and obviously Star Wars. The infamous side wipes that Lucas uses to transition in those movies appear a couple times and the security at the ranch resemble the ones from THX 1138, one of Lucas' first movies (although that might just be the truth, who knows). The writing also does this too including famous quotes when appropriate and even the movie's funniest scene when the gang ends up in George Lucas' trash compactor.

Other cameos include Seth Rogen, Billy Dee Williams, and Kevin Smith, to name a few without spoiling one of the film's few excellent aspects. Stars Sam Huntington ("Superman Returns"), the rotund Dan Fogler ("Balls of Fury"), Jay Baruchel ("Knocked Up") and Chris Marquette ("The Girl Next Door") are all average, though mostly because their characters are written sloppy.

Bottom line is "Fanboys" states in title alone exactly who it's intended for. I don't know why Harvey Weinstein would fight to try and make this something that would appeal to the masses only to let it come out without making a peep. If Star Wars is going to be the focus of a movie, there's one segment of the population that will like it, no matter what you do. Fortunately, for those fans, "Fanboys" is good. ~Steven C

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If you're a geek this movie is for you. If you're a Star Wars geek this movie totally is for you. Basically it's a movie about Star Wars geeks made by Star Wars geeks for a target audience of Star Wars geeks. If you are not into all things Star Wars this movie may well miss the mark with you. And even the most rabid of Star Wars fans would have to concede that the movie is certainly not anything spectacular. It's fairly charming and reasonably amusing but never really riotously funny. But it works. More or less.

The movie is set in the autumn of 1998, a time before Jar Jar Binks had been foisted upon the world. Four friends, major Star Wars geeks all, decide to drive across the country, break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut of The Phantom Menace. The major motivation for this journey is that one of the friends has cancer and will not live to see the movie released. But once that is established the cancer storyline is basically put on the back burner and this turns into a mostly predictable wacky road-trip comedy. Some of the wackiness works, some of it falls flat. There are a bunch of celebrity cameos thrown in, some of which are inspired and some of which are rather random and pointless. So it's a movie which has its ups and downs. But it's enjoyable more often than not and the movie breezes by in a nice, tight, well-paced 90 minutes.

None of the actors playing our gang of four really stand out in any memorable way. Dan Fogler's character is a little more outrageous than the others but that's about it. But the group works together well and they are ably supported by the varied cast of characters who pop up throughout. Seth Rogen's portrayal of a pimp is one of the standouts. Of course this ode to Star Wars fans wouldn't be complete without taking some shots at Trekkies. So there's room for another funny turn by an actor portraying Admiral Seasholtz, an uber-Trekkie. Who is the unrecognizable actor memorably bringing this character to life? You may have to wait until the closing credits roll to figure it out. And in this Star Wars geek universe there's room for one girl and Kristen Bell is both charming and funny in the role as her character gets swept along for the ride. Could the movie be a little more consistently funny? Most definitely. But the movie about Star Wars geeks will probably leave you with a smile on your face. Especially if you're a Star Wars geek yourself.

Sam Huntington plays what may be the lead role in the otherwise ensemble Fanboys, not the friend who has been given four months to live but the guy inheriting the father's business and facing a future he equates with the dark side, not unlike George Walton Lucas Jr who did not want to simply inherit his father's stationery store. Huntington also appeared as the lead in another ensemble road movie Detroit Rock City, where he was under the thumb of a domineering religious mother. That film was released in 1999, a year after Fanboys begins its story.

If you like Detroit Rock City, chances are Fanboys will appeal as well. Instead of KISS, these characters are obsessed with Star Wars in a period where there wasn't as much need to qualify those words. One of the guys happens also to be obsessed with the Canadian rock band RUSH. At first some references come from out of nowhere, but they add a texture – people are going to like what they like. In both movies, Huntington has a scene where he has to strip in a bar. It made more narrative sense in Detroit Rock City, but at least he's not alone in the humiliation and one of his friends takes the brunt of it.

I didn't have to be a hardcore fan of KISS to enjoy Detroit Rock City and likely people don't have to be fans of RUSH or Star Wars to enjoy Fanboys but it will help. I enjoyed where the RUSH music ends up being used and it helps put the viewer in the nostalgic mindset of, well, teens of the early and mid nineteen-eighties – exactly the range of time (1982-1984) that four of the five guys were born; Kristen Bell was born in 1980, so she's an Empire Strikes Back baby. Dan Fogler was born in 1976, a year before Star Wars itself, but because he is heavy some in the audience may accept him as a childhood and high school friend of the others. His sensibilities are those of the director and at least one of the writers, all born in 1976, or perhaps closer to people like myself who were fans in their early thirties when the notorious 1999 Star Wars prequel hit us. The characters do seem to show up at a party with teenagers, and yet most own business. Ultimately they aren't meant to be flesh and blood. One happens to look like young George Lucas we've seen in file photos or from the funny short "George Lucas In Love," and Kristen Bell seems to have died her hair dark for one reason only: to look more Leia-like in a later scene. Seth Rogan plays three roles, which helps reinforce the unreality along with cameos by Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mews and Kevin Smith) along with Smith's documentary guy Zack who was known to like donkeys in Clerks II. Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher also pop up in amusing cameos that allow us to assume the interior of Skywalker Ranch in act II of the story may not have to look and work as it does or did in reality. (Much of Lucasfilm's operation has been moved to The Presidio property now.) For all the amusement and invention, and the heartfelt stakes at the heart of it with a friend's dying wish, the movie is a little short sighted in the sense that these young men – characters in their late twenties or early thirties – often talk in outbursts more suitable for thirteen-year olds. There is an over-the-top hatred between Star Wars and Star Trek fans, when in reality whether we like one brand more than the other there is more audience crossover than polarity. For a comic book store owner to throw out a member of the competing fan base and call him a "Kirk-loving Spock sucker" will play as off-putting and mean even if it is a satirical exaggeration meant to expose the absurdity of the Trek versus Wars rivalry. Unlike Ebert, I'm not bothered that the kid with cancer can participate in a fight, since no extraordinary skill is displayed, any more than the idea that he is walking around and simply taking his pills. It upholds the idea that genre trivia knowledge has an inverse relationship to carnal knowledge. The characters can be at once cool and pathetic, or offensively immature and brilliant which are combinations many people like to pretend do not exist in reality. Overly sensitive audiences won't like this movie. There are bumps along the way but I like where it is going, and it has a very appropriate ending line.

Despite the very limited release of this movie and relatively little hype for the film itself as opposed to the internet controversy, Fanboys lives up to the anticipation a lot of us may have built up, unlike Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. When movies about 9/11 come out, many people coo "too soon." Maybe ten years after we met Jar Jar Binks we can finally laugh at the summer of 1999. Or maybe the solution ended up being this temporal displacement of a story that is really about being stuck in the late 70's and early eighties whether we had been born then or not, listening to RUSH and worrying only that Yoda sounds a bit like Sesame Street's Grover. Not an entirely unpleasant fog.

This was shown today at the Santa Fe Film Festival.

I truly loved it, totally unexpected, as I knew very little about the film. Someone today mentioned a February release, but they also said that was not confirmed, so take that date only as a possible.

I can say that I think you wont be disappointed, it hits a lot of notes, none of them bad. Lots of actors I've never seen before, their interaction was natural, it felt like their relationships were real.

There was a good sized crowd, so it seems there was a lot of interest here at the film festival, and everyone applauded at the end.

Kate