If you struggle with the premise, it won't redeem itself

Rating: 3/10 (22 December 2019)

Maybe nobody but the other virtue police, miscellaneous hoodlums, hippies and concerned mothers of the world will care about this, but:
I heard endless good things about this movie but never watched it for a long time because 1) narcs and snitches are not redeemable characters, generally speaking, 2) making a joke of police brutality in this era is in pretty poor taste 3) it's okay to narc out and kill psychedelics dealers who haven't been shown to do anything else illegal. But then again, I think you can make an excellent joke of most things, if you do it right. The trouble is, comedy can be propagandist, it wins people over. So when live animals get blown up for laughs, and the audience laughs along, obviously the whooole audience isn't gonna run out and start blowing up chickens, and if even some people in the audience do, who's responsible? The people who blew up the chickens, not the people who made the movie, ultimately. The whole "guns don't kill" argument in a nutshell, right? But even still, the fact that chickens are getting blown up for jokes, green energy guy is evil, the only black people in the movie (except Ice Cube) are either played for laughs as getting punched and being pissy about it or getting shot because they're criminals - shot by cops - is unconscionable. Realistic, yes, but...they're being shown as "bad guys" and it's clear we aren't supposed to care or think twice about it. There's no due process, tons of suspects are just getting shot on suspicion of dealing what appear to be psychedelics but are treated like effin bath salts - with the excuse that "one kid died from psychedelics". In an era when MDMA and psilocybin are increasingly being found to be extremely useful at mitigating symptoms of depression, schizophrenia, addiction and PTSD among other mental health issues, this fearmongering reinforcement of existing Reagan-era hysterics is in pretty poor taste. A kid could die from tide pods, so should tide dealers be shot without due process? Obvious hyperbole, but nevertheless...
That all being said, the movie gives a fashionable nod to marijuana and booze as being "okay drugs", as opposed to coke (which is the of a rather funny joke). The film is super funny, despite the main characters being generally unkind, dimwitted, selfish and lacking in empathy. I must admit that even the mean humor is at times pretty funny, though it's in poor taste. Some things are just so needlessly cruel and stupid that they are shockingly hilarious.
The tertiary and second characters are quite awesome, and the overall view of the world & modern high school culture is weirdly spot on, making it a less stupid comedy than expected. The jokes are on point, the humor cuts to the core of a lot of pretty realistic situations.
If it weren't for the total amorality / very right-wing leaning of the story, I'd give it 7 stars. But there's just no getting around the fact that the better the comedy is, the better the (accidental) propaganda for really low standards for all the high schoolers, college kids, and generally impressionable idiots of all ages watching this and knowing that just spoils it for me, unfortunately. Channing Tatum gets 7 stars for hotness, and but that phone tapping nerd gets 8. Meow.