Blockers

(spoiler free)

New comedy, ‘Blockers’ sees the writer of the ‘Pitch Perfect’ trilogy, Kay Cannon make her feature length directorial debut. The film follows three parents played by Leslie Mann, John Cena & Ike Barinholtz who discover their daughters are planning to lose their virginities on prom night. Believing they have their kids best interests’ at heart they set out to ‘block’ any potential high schoolers from helping their daughters to complete their mission.

This comedy isn’t anything overly original. We’ve seen prom night comedies countless times before and the goal of our main characters to lose their virginity even more so. ‘Blockers’ definitely feels familiar but despite this it constantly entertains. Overall the comedy is average but it’s often better than it is worse with few gags failing to succeed in at least some way. While this may be potentially surprising for audiences who have written off ‘Blockers’ from it’s trailers alone what’s even more of a shock is how heartfelt certain moments actually manage to be. The story focuses on three different parent/child relationships and has some really touching sentimental scenes. Furthermore the film also addresses numerous social stigmas in a really authentic manner somewhat creating a pretty relevant comedy film.

The performances from the leading cast are one of the other highlights of this comedy flick. Leslie Mann & Ike Barinholtz are well versed in this genre and it shows. Barinholtz in particular steals the show. His laid back, open-minded character, Hunter, helps a lot but he brings him to life in thoroughly entertaining fashion. John Cena has had a shaky start to his acting career but is slowly but surely making some progress. Although here he seems to want to laugh at the end of every one of his lines, or at least appears to. However other than this he is showing signs of improvement shown by his work here and he wasn’t entirely unsuited to his role or this genre of film. The film boasts a large cast of younger performers too and whilst maybe not as well known as the leading trio they hold their own and contribute nicely to the picture as a whole.

Ultimately ‘Blockers’ is nothing particularly special to write home about. Nonetheless it is constantly amusing and manages to evoke audience laughter on many occasions. Furthermore, despite it’s somewhat juvenile premise it actually manages to be surprisingly mature in it’s approach to many of the subjects it’s screenplay addresses. The chemistry of the main cast makes it all the more watchable and probably a little better than you might have been expecting.

Written by Hamish Calvert

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Rating – 6/10

Question: What is your favourite John Cena film performance?
(Leave your answers in the comments section below!)

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