Blockers

Three girl friends since grade school, Julie, Kayla, and Sam (Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Gideon Adlon) make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night; but, despite their own best efforts, their biggest challenge may actually come from their parents. As it turns out, parents, Lisa, Mitchell, and Hunter (Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholtz) are on to the girls’s plan and they’ll stop at nothing to prevent what they perceive to be a huge mistake. The race is on, will the girls be able to make good on their pact, will they bring on their own undoing through misadventure, or will their parents manage to successfully stop things before it’s too late? Directed by Kay Cannon and Written by Brian and Jim Kehoe, this late teen/young adult romp brings a fairly standard almost Shakespearean trope turned a few degrees on end to swap genders and role reverse in a “clever enough” way to keep the chuckles rolling from start to finish. Playing off of the strength of women in control of their sexualities the film also works to shatter the image of damsels in distress and father knows best, instead, highlighting women who are confident in their bodies asserting their own wants and desires. Selling the picture further, the power of the ensemble is strong in this one flexing the creative and comedic muscles of all, and, while the rules of any Nickelodeon show apply, parents are dolts and kids are geniuses, the overall gag doesn’t overstay its welcome with a runtime of an hour and forty two minutes. You were looking for your next raunch-ish rom com, found it. Blockers is rated R.