Reviews & Previews - Fanboys

Posted on Monday, February 09, 2009 at 05:00 PM

Fanboys

By: S. Tran

Starring: Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel
Directed By: Kyle Newman
Running Time: 90 minutes
Rated: PG-13

Late to the Game

Fanboys is a movie about a group of friends who try and sneak into George Lucas' Skywalker ranch to see the the new Star Wars film before it is released to the public. Had this film come out a year or two after "The Phantom Menace" was released it might have been a timely comedy and garnered a larger audience. However, as we are now more than 10 years after that movie was released you are left wondering what to make of this film.

Huntington is Eric who convinces his friends Windows (Baruchel), Hutch (Fogler) and Linus (Marquette) to make the pilgrimage to the geek Mecca. Along the way they have some zany road trip type adventures and re-establish the friendships they had lost since they graduated from high school.

Apparently the movie was supposed to be released in 2007 but re-shoots and other troubles kept pushing the date back. While not a bad movie there isn't anything that is going to draw in a lot of people to see it. As the name suggests "Fanboy" is really about a subculture of geeks who obsess about whether Luke and Leia kissed far too much for siblings or whether a phaser is a better weapon than a blaster. If you have no idea what those questions mean or don't really care then you are probably not likely to want to see the movie.

Its clear the writer loved the subject matter and there are plenty of inside jokes for fans of the genre to appreciate. The problem is that there isn't enough for the casual viewer to appreciate. The comedy is too narrowly focused most of the time. Even when the jokes do work for the most part they make you smile but don't really get the big laughs that these kinds of comedies need.

No one is really at fault. All the actors do a fine job in their roles and the production values are ok. Although, Eric and Linus seem so similar in the movie that I sometimes forgot who was who. But all the good acting and nice camera work in the world can't save a film that doesn't have enough material to sustain the laughs.

What you end up with is an average road trip/buddy movie with some Star Wars jokes thrown in. If you want to re-live 1997 then this might be worth checking out on a slow weeknight at the video store.

2.5 out of 5 stars.