I write this review as a guy that was a kid during the Star Wars hype in the late 70's and early 80's. I can quote all of the Star Wars movies and understood all of the references to them in Fanboys. The bottom line is that, while this movie has some fun moments, overall it is pretty boring. This is largely because the humor isn't inventive, and outside of some cameo appearances, the performances are entirely uninspired.
The main approach to humor here is essentially showing a group of awkward nerds injecting uncomfortable displays of Star Wars fandom into nearly any social situation imaginable. This bit has been achieved to greater effect with many other movies in the past, the only new thing in this movie is the All Star Wars, All The Time bit. Sure, they got in a lot of obscure original trilogy references, but citing pop culture for its own sake is only so funny. Note the miserable failure of movies like Epic Movie. You just require more than these references.
The various plot points are completely uninspired and unoriginal. We've seen the awkward internet girlfriend meet-up before, but it was funnier in Napoleon Dynamite. We've seen the nerd that is too dense to notice the girl right in front of him, but is blowing it, but it was funnier in Sex Drive. And not only are all these plot conventions unoriginal, but they are executed so poorly in this movie, they hard seemed worth including in the script.
The best parts of the movie are some of the clever cameos. William Shatner steals the stage with his 2 minutes of screen time, though the funniest moment in the whole movie is a super brief appearance of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (and the punch line had nothing to do with Star Wars, incidentally). A notable appearance by Seth Rogen is also amusing, mostly because he gives his little cameo everything he has, and seems to have a lot of fun with it. But the cameo appearances aren't frequent enough to float the movie and leaves a lot of dry periods where the film simply crawls.
And perhaps another small grievance is that the only nerd girl in the movie happens to be super hot, while all the guys are doofs. Why couldn't the nerd girl be a doof too? What do they really achieve making this super hot girl fall for Poindexter just because he's a nerd? It just seems like an awkward casting decision in the middle of a movie full of awkward direction choices.
I guess if you identify with Star Wars nerds, you will at least enjoy parts of this movie. If you just want to see an awkward comedy about nerds making fools of themselves, you can do a whole lot better than this.
The main approach to humor here is essentially showing a group of awkward nerds injecting uncomfortable displays of Star Wars fandom into nearly any social situation imaginable. This bit has been achieved to greater effect with many other movies in the past, the only new thing in this movie is the All Star Wars, All The Time bit. Sure, they got in a lot of obscure original trilogy references, but citing pop culture for its own sake is only so funny. Note the miserable failure of movies like Epic Movie. You just require more than these references.
The various plot points are completely uninspired and unoriginal. We've seen the awkward internet girlfriend meet-up before, but it was funnier in Napoleon Dynamite. We've seen the nerd that is too dense to notice the girl right in front of him, but is blowing it, but it was funnier in Sex Drive. And not only are all these plot conventions unoriginal, but they are executed so poorly in this movie, they hard seemed worth including in the script.
The best parts of the movie are some of the clever cameos. William Shatner steals the stage with his 2 minutes of screen time, though the funniest moment in the whole movie is a super brief appearance of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (and the punch line had nothing to do with Star Wars, incidentally). A notable appearance by Seth Rogen is also amusing, mostly because he gives his little cameo everything he has, and seems to have a lot of fun with it. But the cameo appearances aren't frequent enough to float the movie and leaves a lot of dry periods where the film simply crawls.
And perhaps another small grievance is that the only nerd girl in the movie happens to be super hot, while all the guys are doofs. Why couldn't the nerd girl be a doof too? What do they really achieve making this super hot girl fall for Poindexter just because he's a nerd? It just seems like an awkward casting decision in the middle of a movie full of awkward direction choices.
I guess if you identify with Star Wars nerds, you will at least enjoy parts of this movie. If you just want to see an awkward comedy about nerds making fools of themselves, you can do a whole lot better than this.