Star Wars spoofs are a druggat a dozen, but a road comedy about The Holy Trilogy’s diehard devotees? You’d be forgiven for having a bad feeling about this. But while an easy laugh at the expense of misfit devotees of George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away would no doubt have proved the easier sell,
Fanboys scores for its geek-ogling insider’s eye and its heart; placement plainly on-sleeve.
Granted, Kyle Newman’s salute to pop culture fanaticism is too niche to trouble raucous fellow road-tripper
The Hangover when it comes to public pocket —
Willow gags might be rad for kids of the 80s and those in the know, but a baby being slammed by a car door is
universally hysterical. However, for anyone who’s ever mimed a playground lightsaber duel or whose Nien Nunb action figure now claims prize placement atop their PC, the Force is surprisingly strong with this one. Up-and-comer Jay Baruchel (
Tropic Thunder’s lone voice of reason), token brash fat guy, Dan Fogler, and
Superman Returns’ Sam Huntington are Windows, Hutch and Eric, a trio of friends in a difficult position. It’s 1998 and their countdown clock tells the
Star Wars saga’s first new entry in sixteen years,
Episode I - The Phantom Menace, is still half a year from release. And while the anticipation might nearly kill them, the wait will certainly prove too long for Linus (Chris Marquette); diagnosed with cancer, he’s been given just four months to live. Entering a Halloween-night pact to take the bantha by the horns and make good on a highschool-days dream scheme, the four pile into Hutch’s van for the cross country trek to Skywalker Ranch — to steal
Episode I right out from beneath George’s beard.
Dopey idea? Certainly; what, with audiences now knowing exactly how
Phantom Menace turned out, which presents the obvious quandary of how to handle the characters’ reactions to the disappointing object of their fevered desire. Should they unthinkingly love it, they run risk of coming off as blinkered and brand-besotted, well,
fanboys, but nor will you want Linus sent to his deathbed with a head full of ire and a heart ripped in half. Wisely, with a tip of the stormtrooper helmet to road movie tradition,
Fanboys neatly sidesteps said pickle and reminds it’s the
journey that matters and not our destination. And when the journey in question is stuffed with more obscure in-jokes and familiar faces than a Tusken Raider can shake a gaffi stick at, the ride is scruffily amiable and never less than entertaining, even if it never quite manages the jump to rip-snorting, laugh-loaded lightspeed. Aside, that is, from when a thrice-cameoing Seth Rogen is on-screen as an against-type Trekkie ringleader with an axe to grind with our belligerently Lucas-loving heroes — near-unrecognisable, every word spat from his buck-toothed mouth is on-the-mark, nit-picking nerd gold.
Ultimately, it’s an experience akin to a blithe night in with friends arguing whether Darth Vader would trump Boba Fett in a scrap as you down a couple of brewskis over a trash-talking bout of multiplayer XBox: begat from affection and sporadically hilarious. Those who struggle to tell a Jedi from a Jawa need not apply, but while
Fanboys might not look like much, she’s got it where — and for whom — it counts.
DIRECTOR: Kyle Newman
SCREENWRITERS: Ernet Cline and Adam F. Goldberg
CAST: Jay Baruchel, Sam Huntington, Dan Fogler, Chris Marquette, Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, Christoper McDonald, Danny Trejo
RATING: M
RUN TIME: 90 minutes
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