FANBOYS

Fanboys is a comedy by geeks, for geeks . . .

Or make that Star Wars geeks. The year is 1999. There hasn’t been a Star Wars movie for fifteen years, so the expectations of die-hard fans are quite high for Star Wars: Episode I. Months before the film’s official release a group of friends decide to break into Skywalker Ranch and watch the highly-anticipated prequel (if only they knew!) before a member of their group dies of terminal cancer.

Thus the background is set for your typical Hollywood road movie, except for all the movie nerd references and in-jokes of course. The movie is never nasty or mean-spirited in the way that a lot of today’s comedies are (except towards Trekkies that is). It also never goes for the oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-they’re-actually-saying-or-doing-that shock comedy so prevalent in Hollywood nowadays. The movie geek stuff is admittedly fun, but not much really happens as the plot resorts to clichés typical of the genre: our nerd heroes have a run-in with two “escorts” and their pimp; they end up in a gay bikers’ bar; etc.

Because the characters are so stereotypical, as if they just strolled in from Wayne’s World, they never feel real. It is thus difficult to become emotionally involved with them even though they are fellow nerd travelers from the 1990s. So don’t worry Free Enterprise, you’re still the best geek comedy out there. (Check out this 1998 comedy if you haven’t already done so.)

Ultimately Fanboys does offer a few laughs, but it is wildly uneven. One should however be thankful for the absence of vomit jokes, so file it under “not bad, but not good either” and “rent it one day, but don’t fork out a full movie ticket for it.”

(Some notes: amazing how quick the ‘Nineties have become the stuff of nostalgia! Or maybe it is just because it took such a long time for the movie to be released. Look out for cameos by the likes of Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams. Shatner makes an appearance too.)

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