Wet Hot American Summer Review
By Joe Lozito
Dumber Camp
Michael Showalter and David Wain, formerly of Mtv's "The State", want to have it both ways in their film "Wet Hot American Summer". They want this film to be a quirky, off-the-wall parody of early 80s "Meatballs" last-day-of-summer-camp movies, while at the same time being nostalgic for that genre. What comes together (or, more to the point, doesn't come together) in the film is a mish-mash of jokes and characters, some of which seem to come from a completely different movie.
The film is peopled with a who's-who of "State" performers along with other familiar faces such as David Hyde Pierce and the always-game Janeane Garofalo. The ensemble cast gives it their all, but ultimately they are let down by a script which doesn't understand that a 90 minute movie - yes, even a wacky comedy - needs some kind of internal structure to keep the audience interested.
Rather than create a few characters with some depth, the writers decided to load the film with a school busload of one-joke characters. The movie plays like a bunch of skits with nothing stringing them together. That said, once in a while the jokes are on target - particularly a hysterical monologue by a softball coach who, as a pep talk, sums up every rehashed come-from-behind sports movie ever made. The team's reaction is priceless.
But moments like this are few and far between and there's little to watch when they're not around. However, they do provide a glimpse of the far superior parody this film could have been.
