Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

As the summer ends, the gang at Camp Firewood agrees to meet again ten years later. It is 1991 and some of them have returned. Little do they know, President Reagan has other ideas with their camp.

I like the original well enough, but I love First Day of Camp more. Part of it is that I wasn't prepared with the original. Also, First Day is just stupider and sillier especially with the time bending premise. The ten years jump takes away the big gimmick from First Day. It's crazy to push that gimmick any further, but it would have been glorious to try.

This one exists somewhere in the middle. I am glad that many have returned from both the original and First Day. One gets the sense that this is a fun time with old friends for all those involved and it shows.

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.

Wow. Despite the great reviews, I found "First Day At Camp" to be beyond boring. In addition to being so distracting that everyone was clearly 20 years older, there was just nothing there.

I love that this movie said screw it and after starting with the cutesy satire of "where are they now" schtick early on, it is unashamed to just go off the rails. Disparate story lines that somehow connect together, ridiculous "cameos" and story lines, and just good fun all around.

One of the more pleasant surprises that I have had watching a TV show in a long time

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.