The premise certainly sounds horrifying and offensive: When three parents discover their daughters’ pact to lose their virginity at prom, they launch a covert one-night operation to stop the teens from sealing the deal. Sounds like a laugh riot, right? Well, as much as I hate to admit it, Blockers is quite funny. It’s also a hard ‘R’, so don’t be cueing this one up for Family Movie Night.
Unlike the typical American Pie-style comedy (about teenage boys vowing to lose their virginity by prom night), Blockers is more about the antics and insecurities of the parents. The kids are the mature and sensible ones, relatively speaking. The parental posse includes Lisa (Leslie Mann, The Other Woman, This Is 40), a clingy single mom whose daughter Julie (Kathryn Newton) is in a semi-serious relationship and eager to head off to college; Hunter (Ike Barinholtz, Neighbors, Suicide Squad), a deadbeat dad looking to make amends with his daughter Sam (Gideon Adlon) who is just coming to terms with her sexual orientation; and Mitchell (John Cena, Trainwreck, Sisters) a burly yet nerdy helicopter dad who is willing to go to great lengths to stop his daughter Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) from doing the nasty — even if it means participating in an a**-chugging contest involving beer, a funnel and buttholes. (You get the picture).
Blockers does make a concerted effort to inject some sentimentality into the plot, but most of that takes a back seat to slapstick comedy, gross projectile vomiting, adult sexcapades (actor Gary Cole goes the Full Monty for this one), and the deciphering of cryptic teen texts dominated by emojis. Blockers is raunchy and raucous – and not for everyone. Overall, not bad for the directorial debut of Pitch Perfect franchise writer Kay Cannon. It’s not a must-see, but it is surprisingly entertaining — if you can get past that premise!