Apocalyptic bromancing

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2013)

First off, I have to say I'm fully behind a film like this in principle. Friends got together and convinced a studio to back them goofing around, being themselves. Is there an element of self-satisfaction about playing yourself? Yes definitely. Is it crass and stupid in spots? Again yes. But I like the loose structure, the fact that you can tell a lot was improvised on the spot. That they play themselves as stoned geeks who are in a geeky sci-fi movie about the end of the world, intending it for an audience of likeminded geeks.
And yet it doesn't fully satisfy. It's in the nature of improv that not all of it will pan out, not talking about a few flat jokes here. It's that they can't help being bros, not very imaginative. Putting monsters in there doesn't count as imagination in my book. I just think they could have pushed themselves more, gone out of artistic comfort zones, fooled with their selves, done more with the hallucinations. I guess part of the joke is that they can't act and are really playing variations of themselves each time, something mentioned in just the first scene. You can even see that a lot of their improv is pretty bad, lots of smirks they can't hide. Or does that make it good?
Am I salivating at the prospect of this movie done by Korine? Just an extended party montage at the house. You bet.