Fanboys

Featuring plenty of in jokes and cameos (Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher both appear), FANBOYS is, like the behavior it chronicles, a triumph of passion over judgment. The idea of anyone being excited by the prospect of seeing Phantom Meance now kind of seems like a joke, and director Kyle Newman has minimal interest in asking his actors to actually shape a scene or portray an authentic character (that Marquette and Huntington are believable as separated old friends says more about their charm and skill than it does about the script).

Fanboys has a certain amount of kindness under the surface, but that surface is studded with bathroom humor, unfunny gags, cruel caricatures, and a boys' club attitude that makes women irrelevant (with the exception of Kristen Bell's just-one-of-the-dudes nerdy-hottie, who gets to realize her crush on one of the four -- which is in itself a weird, sexist form of wish fulfillment). Newman seems to be inspired by the pop culture zing and crude zest of Kevin Smith; hard as it is to imagine, Newman could take lessons from the smarts and heart Smith has hidden under the swearing and name-checking in his best scripts.