Blu-ray Review: Good Boys

STUDIO: Universal | DIRECTOR: Gene Stupnitsky | CAST: Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams, Brady Noon, Molly Gordon Midori Francis, Millie Davis
RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019 | PRICE: DVD $21.99, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $24.99
BONUSES: commentary, deleted and extended scenes, featurettes, more
SPECS: R | 90 min. | Comedy adventure | 2.39:1 widescreen | DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 | French Canadian and Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie  | Audio | Video | Overall

If Seth Rogen’s name is on a film—either as a star or producer—you can be pretty certain it won’t be a gentle, G-rated outing. And so it comes as little surprise that the Rogen-co-produced Good Boys is a raunchy farce involving a group of sixth graders, awkward with their burgeoning manhood and members of the opposite sex, who go to great lengths to get a crash course in sex education.

In many ways, this is a miniature version of the Rogen-produced and co-written Superbad: love-smitten Max (Jacob Tremblay, Room), wannabe singer musical theater star Thor (Brady Noone, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire) and naïve Lucas (Keith L. Wiliams, Sadie)—known collectively as “The Bean Bag Boys”—try to give themselves a crash course in the birds and the bees after Max falls for a cute classmate named Brixlee (Millie Davis, Wonder).

The Bean Baggers commandeer a drone to spy on their older female neighbors to get some tips on intimacy, but their plans backfire and soon complications ensue involving the drone and a supply of the drug Ecstasy.

Along with Superbad, there are echoes of other Rogen projects here, especially his two Neighbors films. The language and crude predicaments are plentiful, and may appear off-putting at first as it involves 12-year-olds, but they come off as calculatedly un-PC. Luckily, the cast is certainly game with high-pitched Williams stealing a lot of the scenes.

The problem with Good Boys, however, is that it wears out its welcome before the halfway point, as the predicaments the group grow tiresome despite the litany of blue dialogue and supposedly outrageous situations involving a life-size doll and a suspended sex harness.  Pretty much all of the funniest moments are featured in the trailer, which takes some oomph out of the proceedings.

Still, the film from writers of The Office and Bad Teacher Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (who also directed this) saw months-long play in multiplexes, generally good reviews and a surprising $100 million take on a relatively low-budget. With Good Boys 2 pretty much a certainty, those who missed the film in theaters and moviegoers who couldn’t stop laughing are sure to delight in the fact that this group of kids may not be all right but they can be funny at times.