Review: Blockers

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Much like 2011's "Bridesmaids," the raunchy new "Blockers" turns the sex comedy on its ear. The film has two sets of protagonists - three girls who have been best friends since childhood and are now planning to carry out a pact to lose their virginity on prom night during their senior year, and the three overprotective parents who learn of the pact and do everything in their power to prevent it from coming to fruition. In comedies of years past, the parents' foibles might have been the butt of the jokes, but ultimately the daughters' would learn that their parents meant well and, most likely, all decide to hold off on the sex.

In this picture, however, the parents - played adeptly by John Cena, Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz - are the butt of nearly all the jokes, and the daughters are viewed as being more balanced and sane. The picture was directed by Kay Cannon - whose previous work included "30 Rock" and the "Pitch Perfect" movies - and she wisely incorporates a running theme throughout "Blockers" that the three teenage girls are not damsels in distress. Or, as one of them tells their hovering parent, she doesn't need to be saved.

Also, in the era of #MeToo and women confronting abuse in Hollywood, it is refreshing for a movie to treat young women's sexuality as something that does not need to be approved of or decided by men. During one of the film's better scenes, the three snooping parents are busted by one of their spouses (played by Sarayu Blue), who poses a good question: Why is it no big deal when young men lose their virginity, whereas parents often freak out when a young woman decides to lose hers?

It also helps that the three young women - Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) - playing the daughters are also great comediennes and have well developed characters. Julie plans to lose her virginity to a longtime boyfriend, while Kayla - who is the best character of the bunch - has decided that she wants to get it over with, and plans to sleep with her man-bun wearing prom date, who seemingly has an endless supply of drugs and rubs Cena's father the wrong way. Sam also joins in on the pact, but is secretly a lesbian who is harboring a crush on a girl named Angelica (Ramona Young).

While the humor involving the daughters stems from the concept that women can be just as vulgarly funny as men, the jokes involving the parents are more broad, but equally humorous. Cena - a pro wrestler who has a knack for comedy - is Mitchell, a proud parent who gets overly emotional regarding anything involving his daughter. Mann's single mom Lisa has become emotionally clingy toward Julie, realizing that she will soon leave for college. Barinholtz gets a number of laughs as deadbeat dad Hunter, who wants to have a better relationship with his child.

One of the film's most outrageous gags involves Cena getting roped into a beer chugging competition that involves sticking the hose in his rectum. That was funny, but I laughed even harder at the recurring gag involving Gina Gershon and Gary Cole as two other parents with a penchant for role playing.

"Blockers" is, for the most part, a very funny movie. There are a lot of gags thrown at the audience. Some work more than others, but it is on the whole funnier than your average Hollywood comedy. It also helps that the film's characters require some emotional investment, and the writer and directors make the liberation of young women a central theme. Too often, the sexual appetites of women are either frowned upon or the butt of jokes in films such as this one - but in this case, it's the ones who fear liberated women at whom we laugh. "Blockers" takes the worn-out horny teenagers genre and gives it a clever spin.