Movie Review - Fanboys

After four years of waiting, and being a complete n00b and missing it in theaters, I finally got to see Fanboys when Netflix sent it to me.

Quick review: It was funny. Not the funniest film I've seen, but I laughed. I think if you're not an immense Star Wars fan, this movie would have been pretty awful. There were so many little jokes that would go completely missed if you weren't intimately familiar with the Lucas films.

The plot was manageable even if somewhat predictable. The biggest surprise to me though, was the ending wasn't what I was expecting. The reason was that this Fanboys wasn't the first Fanboys with pretty much the exact same basis.

In 2003 a group of New Zealand film makers put together a short film called Fanboys about a group of friends that intended to steal a screener copy of Episode I before it was released in theaters. Hijinks ensued and it ended up that Lucas was aware of the plan and let them get away with a copy of the Star Wars Christmas Special as punishment. If you're not familiar with the Christmas Special, well, it's better that way. It featured Bea Arthur singing some crazy lyrics to the Star Wars theme and some campy story about Chewbacca having to get back to his family for “Life Day” (the Wookie knock off of Christmas). It was bad. Really bad. The only notable part of it was the first introduction of the bad ass bounty hunter Boba Fett who later appeared in Empire Strikes Back to capture Han, then fell into a Sarlaac in Return of the Jedi (yet lived according to the novels) and was later revealed to be a clone of Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones.

Anyway. That's how I was expecting the film to end. But it didn't. It ended as you'd expect if you were watching the movie with no prior knowledge of any of these things. The acting was pretty good from all the main actors. The Trekkies were pretty bad, but who cares? They're Trekkies. The cameos were awesome. And I swear Kristen Bell is stalking me. She's been in all sorts of cool stuff, from the Showtime adaptation of the musical version of Reefer Madness, to being a major character in the TV show Heroes, to a voice for the upcoming Astroboy movie, and apparently even a film adaptation of the classic mathy novella, Flatland. Either way, I can't get enough of her (or Felicia Day for that matter).

So should you run out and get the movie? If you've seen everything else for the summer and are feeling geeky, go for it. It has a few touching moments between a few laughs. It's short enough to hold your attention span. Seven stars out of ten.