RATINGS on scale of 1 to 10
LAUGHS: 5 (It’s funny, but it’s hopelessly dirty and immoral)
STORYLINE: 2 (Completely amoral storyline, mitigated only by some nice parent-teen moments sprinkled throughout)
ACTING: 8 (The parents are expert comic creations, but the teens aren’t as well-defined at times)
ROMANCE: 0 (One girl has sex only because it’s been six months with her boyfriend and “it’s time,” while the other two seek sex for baser reasons)
OVERALL: 4.5
DATEWORTHY? NO!
A highly raunchy comedy about a trio of high-school senior girls who are lifelong best friends and make a pact to all lose their virginity on prom night—and their parents who try to stop them from following through— “Blockers” has some laughs for those with zero moral considerations whatsoever, but is toxic to anyone with a Catholic or Christian worldview.
As a film critic for both secular and Catholic/Christian sites, I’m often forced to see movies that most believers would be smart to avoid. The hard-R, sex-comedy genre is a prime example of the type of movie that often puts me in a dilemma: I might occasionally find the movies funny on a worldly level in spite of myself, while also knowing that they can be serious occasions of sin that I have to warn my faith-based readers about.
Dirty-minded filmmakers create a movie with a foul message
Only one man truly does these kinds of movies in a way that believers who aren’t easily offended can enjoy, and that’s Judd Apatow. His movies (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” “Superbad,” “This Is 40” and “Trainwreck”) all have a risqué surface image, but make some startlingly good points about sexual morality, abortion, married life and the need to transform from a life of sin.
The new movie “Blockers” seems like the kind of movie Apatow would do, and even stars his wife Leslie Mann as an overprotective mother leading two father friends in a mad dash to find and pretend their teenage daughters from losing their virginity in a “sex pact” on prom night. But unfortunately, it comes from the utterly amoral team of filmmakers behind the “Harold & Kumar” series of pot-fueled comedies and the fourth “American Pie” movie, as well as Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who mix worthy adult comedies with some pretty vile junk like the raunchy AND atheistic “Sausage Party.”
Teen girls make “sex pact” to lose their virginity on prom night, no matter what
“Blockers” opens on home movie footage of the girls meeting on their first day of first grade, and onward through until the day of prom. Julie (Kathryn Newton) is the princess and leader of the trio, and the daughter of overprotective single mom Lisa (Leslie Mann). Kayla (Geraldine Visnawathan) is half-Indian and the daughter of ultraconservative, tough but hyper-sensitive dad Mitchell (John Cena), while Sam (Gideon Adlon) is a nerdy girl who reluctantly joins in a “sex pact” in which all three agree to lose their virginity on prom night with their dates.
Sam is hiding a big secret (SPOILER ALERT): she has lesbian feelings for an openly lesbian girl in their class and is only going to prom with a male date because she’s afraid to “come out” yet (END SPOILER). Her father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) has a terrible reputation for having had an affair with her babysitter years before, and for drinking too much rather than being present enough in her life.
When Hunter tries to make amends with Sam by providing a giant limo for the girls and their dates, he has unwittingly provided them the inspiration and opportunity to meet their sex pact goal. The parents used to be friends when the girls were young but drifted apart as they grew older, but when they stumble across computerized messages that reveal the girls’ naughty plans, they team up to find and stop them from actually having sex.
A non-stop parade of every kind of immorality
“Blockers” is fast-paced, and those who don’t have moral concerns about teen sex and drinking will likely find it funny. But for anyone with the slightest bit of traditional morality, this is a very raunchy and highly destructive movie that could prove to influence countless teenagers into committing immoral behavior on multiple levels. And it’s not good food for the mind and soul in adults, either.
The film has near-constant swearing and frequent graphic sexual humor, punctuated by plenty of wild party scenes in which the kids get drunk underage to the point of puking all over each other in their limo. Sex is seen as either romantic but not requiring any marital standards, or crassly regarded for much of the movie as a fun thing to get through the first time regardless of whether one even knows their partner well. When one girl finally decides not to have sex because she doesn’t even know the boy’s last name, she just asks to get to know him “until Monday” and proceeds to encourage him to perform oral sex on her, which is implied but discussed positively and graphically afterwards.
When parents cave in, teens wind up without role models
One set of parents of a supporting-character teen are shown to be into kinky role-playing games, while Lisa and Mitchell are each portrayed as uptight more than as rightfully concerned parents. While “Blockers” does feature the girls having nice scenes in which they attempt to be more open, loving and understanding with their parents, the parents cave in way too much to be good parents, opting to be hip friends to their children rather than the moral leaders they are supposed to be.
Beyond that, the movie has a strong pro-gay perspective in embracing Sam’s decision to come out. Her father Hunter takes pride that she came out to him before her mother and stepdad, and fully cheers her on, as do her two best friends before she walks up to the girl of her dreams and engages in passionate kissing on the dance floor.
Teen sex is often an unfortunate reality, but a movie like “Blockers” creates a toxic atmosphere of greater encouragement for teens to engage in this behavior and by setting a poor example for parents and their responsibilities to provide good moral guidance for their kids. With almost no redeeming qualities and a mostly vile agenda of promoting casual teen sex and humorous depictions of underage partying, “Blockers” is a movie for nearly anyone to avoid.
