Rock Jocks

I had a chance to see this film in Denver last night. The film is laughs from beginning to end. Yes, there is quite a bit of profanity (it might not be a film for the little ones), but it works well with the plot/characters. I especially enjoyed the ensemble feel to the cast - every actor had their moment.

After the film we had a Q&A with the Director, Paul Seetachitt. How often does one get a chance to do that?! It was interesting to hear some of the stories behind the making of the movie.

I have already decided I need to see this again.

Go see Rock Jocks! It Rocks!!!

This movie is intended for a male audience, preferably between the ages of 14-30. The humor isn't great, but definitely funny if you like "immature" humor. The only female character is played by Felicia Day (Alison), who does have a minor impact on the story, but is not properly utilized intellectually, as is the case in many Sci-Fi, Comedy movies.

Gerry Bednob, Andrew Bowen, Justin Chon and Kevin Wu help to develop the distinct characters needed for a misfit group. The acting itself is good, but hilarious writing helps to fuel this movie.

While the premise of impending doom, small group having to save the planet, "The Man" always trying to make the job harder, and the deadbeat dad role are not original, they are developed and help to conduct the story in an interesting way.

Doug Jones as Smoking Jesus, with continual exclamations of "Jesus" is definitely an upside, as well as quoting numerous movies throughout the movie.

Hopefully a deeper look at the characters and speeches throughout the movie will prompt similar movies, because there are pretty well thought out speeches made by the characters in the film.

The story itself is interesting to follow, peppered in with character conflicts that makes this an interesting movie, well worth a 85-91 minute viewing. Many people will not relate to it, and that's more than fair, but if you enjoy simplistic humor, good/great acting as well as some quality background imagery (scenes with Smoking Jesus), this might be worth a look.

Without spoiling the movie, it is hard to develop a full review, but a fair rating for this movie is 6/10, with a wide range of ratings expected between 1-10 because there will be people to whom this movie does not appeal at all, or to the target audience which it might. There are a few editing issues (talking without mouth moving) but overall the movie seems to be pretty well done.

It's not often that a low-budget movies manage to unironically entertain me, but Rock Jocks is the exception that proves the rule. I'll admit, I wanted to watch this because it looked cheesy, and on a few levels, it still is. There's one location, maybe about 7 people in the main cast, and the CGI isn't exactly Avatar, but this movie manages to use those limitations to its advantage. The movie takes place in an obsolete and underfunded secret bunker, and it's obvious that this overjoyed the production designer, who filled the room with all kinds of retro junk computers and panels. Since the characters never really leave the bunker, the cast size is actually perfect: everybody has their moment, and nobody is used too much. The makeup for the alien, Smoking Jesus, is amazing, and the guy who plays him is the guy who played all the monsters in Pan's Labrynth! This is how you make a low budget sci fi movie!

A group of dysfunctional government employees find themselves responsible for shooting down asteroids that are headed for earth.

While I most enjoyed the exchanges between Jason Mewes and Robert Picardo, everyone here was funny. The first third was a bit slow, but once I warmed up to the jokes and excessive vulgarity, it was a real treat. The old man is especially funny.

This may not be a film I ever watch again, but I enjoyed it just the same. In some ways, it reminded me of the profane humor of "Clerks" (another Mewes film), only this time with video game nerds rather than retail employees.

Hmm, if you ignore all the 1-review-only reviewers (who are often seen padding the reviews of obscure films with exuberant use of exclamation points and lack of content), "Rock Jocks" has a mostly lukewarm to negative response from IMDb. I'm not sure why that is because I thought it was a crowd pleaser. Take the absurdness of "The Office", pepper it with some immature humor (but funny I admit) à la "Southpark", add a goofy scifi vibe like in "Galaxy Quest", and throw in just a pinch of symbolic depth & quirky artistic flair (the Smoking Jesus scenes), like you might find in an early Tim Burton flick such as "Edward Scissorhands", and this is what you get. Whatever this is.

The story is about a secret government agency that shoots down rogue asteroids before they pulverize the planet. The comedy is that this agency is operated by a bunch of dysfunctional losers whom you wouldn't trust to valet park your Hyundai, let alone operate orbital satellites armed with planet-deafening lasers. The story takes place over the course of 12 hours, from 5pm to 5am, making up a typical(?) night shift.

The script is pretty funny and the acting is pretty good. Maybe too good in the case of at least one character who is so annoying you wish he would go stick his tongue to a frozen flagpole. Regardless of if you love em or hate em, all the characters are very vivid and identifiable, from the burned-out loser dad (the main protagonist) to the pesky British specialist who's trying to get them all fired, to the twisted old man (who excuses his utter crassness & vulgarity by saying "I'm old! I can say things like that!"), to the terminally uptight overachiever played by Felicia Day (absolutely loved her as the supervillain Panthera in the youtube series "Save the Supers"), to the nerdy whiz kid who is constantly getting abused in painful ways, to the annoying character mentioned earlier who does most of the abusing, to the refreshingly funny security guards whose entire screen time is mostly a dialogue about all the creative ways "motherf--r" can be used in a sentence (Bubba Gump shrimp style haha), to finally everyone's favorite character "Smoking Jesus" whom you just gotta see for yourself.

There are plenty of cute & classic pop culture references (Lord of the Rings, Terminator, Star Trek II, and probably a dozen others which, alas, I'm not quite nerdy enough to get) that spice up this funny script so that it never lags. So if you're looking to be entertained in an unapologetically inane way for 80 minutes, look no further than "Rock Jocks". Guaranteed to meteor expectations.