Wet Hot American Summer is a comedy film directed by David Wain. The plot follows the events at Camp Firewood over the course of a summer. The film serves to spoof a lot of the camp-based sex comedies, it does this by knowingly being very over the top and pointing out the absurdity of it all; as you such you have things like talking cans.
I am not going to lie, I watched the Netflix made follow ups to this film before I saw the film itself, I loved them and so I went into this with very high expectations. Sadly, this is one of the few times that a Netflix revival/continuation is actually better than the film itself.
I get what this film was trying to do, I just didn’t find it funny. Maybe that’s because my sense of humour doesn’t line up with the humour of the early 2000’s and instead finds more kinship with the humour of the more recent Netflix series. I think the only character that made me laugh was the talking can and that is because H. John Benjamin can do no wrong.
I think as far as spoofs go this is well done, it parodies the sillier and more ridiculous nature of some of it’s contemporaries in a smart way that feels spot on. A lot of the characters and hijinks in this film will remind you of things from other camp-based sex comedies that you have seen, like American Pie Band Camp, by design of course.
Overall, I think this is a well-done spoof film, but an unfunny comedy film, so it is a mixed bag and it depends what you’re watching it for. I truly believe, heresy as it might be, that the Netflix follow-up series are far better and crucially funnier.
Pros.
A well-done spoof.
Interesting characters.
- John Benjamin.
Cons.
It isn’t funny.
It fizzles out towards the end.
3/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 