Most people, I think, have some sort of unhealthy habit. Whether they admit it or not, everyone has some trait, activity or habit that they take to the extreme. Now, I doubt very much that most people can relate to the love of Star Wars that the characters in Fanboys have. But, everyone has an obsession, don’t they? Some people are clean freaks, some people love dogs, and, well, some people love a series of movies about space drama.
The four main characters are introduced clumsily as former high school buddies now separated, with Eric having moved on to manage his dad’s car dealership and the other three struggling to adapt to the real world. Hutch lives in his mom’s garage, which he insists upon calling a carriage house, and works at comic book store with Windows and Linus, where all three secretly crush on geek hottie Zoe. For some reason Eric decides it’s time to reunite with the gang, and it’s even less clear why they all vow to cash in on their childhood dream of driving to Skywalker Ranch and stealing a copy of The Phantom Menace — it’s 1998, you see, and they’re convinced the new Star Wars movie is worth the trouble. Weren’t we all so innocent then?
Ostensibly Eric decides to make the trip because Linus is dying of cancer, a fact that’s tossed into the end of a few scenes but otherwise ignored for the bulk of the movie. The cancer subplot was one that fans fought hard to keep here, but despite that, Harvey Weinstein was right: The movie would have been better without it. Fanboys plods along agreeably enough once the road trip gets going, but every time the script dips grudgingly back into the “Linus is dying!” subplot, the momentum falls apart. Otherwise interchangeable with the rest of his buddies, Linus sure doesn’t act like a cancer patient who is at one point diagnosed by doctor Carrie Fisher as “very sick.” And plus, with the benefit of hindsight, we know it’s pretty lame to subject your dying buddy to The Phantom Menace anyway.
At the end of the movie, when the boys and token girl finally settle in to watch The Phantom Menace, one turns to the group and asks “Guys, what if the movie sucks?” It’s a question that also should have occurred to the assorted geeks and fans who fought so hard for this movie’s release, starting anti-Harvey Weinstein websites and insisting that the movie’s darker subplot be kept intact, according to the wishes of director Kyle Newman.
Not that Fanboys is an Episode One-level disappointment, but it’s just generic and uneven, more like a typical raunch comedy than a paean to geek subculture. The sloppy script by Ernest Cline and Adam F. Goldberg veers between pop culture references, poop and fart jokes and goopy sentimentality, treating character development like an inconvenience and slapping the plot together rather than give it any real structure. Newman and his lead actors establish a genuine rapport among the endearing main characters, but they’re pretty much lost in the weeds in a script that can’t honor its great premise.
A little bit of zing comes from Kristen Bell as Zoe; Bell has a way with prickly intelligence that requires far less reference-dropping than her less-natural dude colleagues. But her role is marginalized, and with it a major window into the subculture. Ultimately Fanboys becomes just another rowdy boys’ party, rather than an insightful celebration.