Imagine my surprise at seeing this film was actually getting some positive hype on it as I really didn’t know what I was going into to see..and that’s how I like to do it.
Unfortunately “Good Boys” is not as smartly written as I had hope for. It’s funny to a point, but the film seems to be so smitten by the sixth-grade boys poking around adult themes that it rarely tries to go beyond being raunchy and crass. Sadly, those are the times it’s actually good.
The jokes here almost feel too easy and too shallow. Part of the problem is here is that the film wants to convey the feeling of films we’ve seen before, but with sixth graders instead. Think Superbad or American Pie with 12 yr olds though I will say it does also take the time to focus on some slightly more innocent things as well, like going to their first ‘kissing party’ and realizing they don’t know how. But essentially things could be more witty than boiling it down to the parents porn paraphernalia and ‘what are anal beads’ and the ‘swing’ in the parents room.
The kids here do a decent job at acting Jacob Tremblay playing the lead Max is pretty much an every man type role who wants the girl and goes to great exaggerated lengths to get her, over & over again you see all the break ups played out rather humourously. Brady Noon is the drama kid Thor, who wants to be cool, tries to hard, but he can really sing well, so of course ends up as the lead in the school play. And Keith L. Williams as Lucas, is the nice, honest guy almost to a fault. Again, these are all archetypes we saw in American Pie shrunk down to pint-sized levels. The main problem with that is this films wants to apply the same standards of those comedies to this one.
On paper, it probably seems like a great idea that just didn’t hit it’s well-intended mark. Don’t get me wrong as while you do laugh at parts, it just doesn’t feel witty enough to make you genuinely laugh out loud. Sure, it was cute and amusing, but as a comedy, it left a lot to be desired.
Grade: C+
Follow me on twitter: @pegsatthemovies and Instagram: peggyatthemovies
Media Screening: Monday, August 12, 2019 ~ Courtesy of Universal Pictures
“GOOD BOYS” HITS THEATERS WORLDWIDE FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2019
Peggy at the Movies 
Great post 🙂 I have not seen the film yet, but the trailers make it look funny, but for something like this, the distributor is probably selling it like that to make one believe that it is funny. I can’t say cause I have not seen it yet. Anyway, keep up the great work as always 🙂
Thanks John!!
The trailers looked awful. I didn’t want to see such young children behaving in this manner. Then I saw it. I was pleasantly surprised. The children were actually well behaved. One was practically a goody-two-shoes. Another was more into singing in the school play than girls. It was far sweeter than I had anticipated.
There is still lots of course language and a few raunchy parts made me squirm – the “CPR doll” for example – but overall I did laugh. For a late August release, that was more than I had expected. It’s not spectacular, but I can still why the film became a minor hit.
yeah.. as noted you do laugh some..was it uproariously good..no. but as with anything it comes down to what each person thinks is really funny.. or not.. this was a bit above average for me – hence the C+ rating. Average plus.. hahahahhahaha Oh and the goody-twoshoes character was my fav. 🙂