Wet Hot American Summer
director | David Wain
starring | Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde-Pierce, Michael Showalter etc.

Cult classic, critically panned on its release, stars pretty much every funny person from turn-of-the-century American comedy, Paul Rudd is in it etc.

Finally got around to watching this last night. Wet Hot American Summer is one of those films I’ve heard a lot about in the past couple of years: I’ve had it recommended to me by different people on many an occasion and often heard it mentioned in the same breath as my beloved Office Space. Like that movie, it came out around the beginning of the millennium, died a death at the box office and has since attained a loyal cult following on DVD. It’s not as good as Office Space, I’ll say that from the off, but then -- to my mind -- very little is as I have an almost unhealthy affection for that movie. But very good it is nonetheless.

Wet Hot American Summer is, ostensibly at least, a spoof of the ‘teen summer camp coming-of-age’ movie, a sub-genre of 80’s cinema that I’m admittedly not all that familiar with. But I say ostensibly because although there is a sort of narrative thread holding the whole thing together, the film is essentially a series of sketches -- not surprising considering most of the cast and crew come either from Saturday Night Live, The State, Reno 911! or indeed all three. And obviously Paul Rudd is in it too. Some of these sketches work better than others (Molly Shannon’s camp counselor falling in love with a ten-year old is mostly filler) but the rest -- the demented cook, Michael Showalter’s turn as the hack compere Alan Shemper, and the camp counselors’ hilarious drug binge  -- more than make up for it. Also the soundtrack is AMAZING -- the use of Jefferson Starship in the opening credits is inspired and the Theodore Shapiro tune ‘Higher And Higher’ that plays through two of the climactic scenes is just perfect. So yeah, recommended. Paul Rudd is in it.

meaningless rating | turquoise