[REVIEW: In Theaters] KINGS OF SUMMER (7/10)

Called a film for the YouTube generation (according to some critic in the film’s trailer), Kings of Summer from Jordan Vogt-Roberts does feel as if it’s cobbled together from several web videos – from the film’s opening (in which all three boys create a symphony on a refinery pipe that cuts through the forest) to individual glimpse into their domestic life (both inside the domestic situation they create and their real home life). The boys Joe (Nick Robinson), Pat (Gabriel Brasso) and Biaggio (Moses Arias) decide to spend a summer in the wild – they dumpster dive to create a sort of tree house in the wild. Thankfully this doesn’t turn as violent as Lord of the Flies,

and is, despite the crushes and heartaches that feel worse when you’re younger, generally good-natured.

Pat busts free from his obnoxious parents (played by Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson) who think they are building character while driving him nuts. In contrast, Joe doesn’t have it much easier – he lives with his overly critical father (played by the one and only Nick Offerman in the kind of role he’s born to do: the jerk who either doesn’t know just how much he hurt others or doesn’t care). Offerman also has some funnier moments once the boys go missing and he’s forced into a character arch.

The Kings of Summer is in general about a bunch of nice kids, its not refined, mature or at times as coherent as it ought to be but what I admire is that its episodic structure allows it to achieve a lot (and also a very little). Based on the film’s stronger elements including its performances and individual scenes, which arrive with an awful lot of painful insight I’m inclined to give it a thumbs up.

Opening directly at MovieLand 8, you didn’t have the opportunity to blow the price of a first run movie ticket on this film and that’s okay. For $4 you could do a lot worse and Kings of Summer is a little bit of a retread of summer movies past, but still, if you are looking for the kind of movie that this is (summer fun) it succeeds and does a little more. Where it misses, there are characters that are supposed to be a little more lovable than they are. Perhaps it’s a testament to Nick Offerman that his character is much less a sketch than a fully formed human, while I’m unsure of Moses Arias’ Biaggio, who just happens to be there.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival as Toy’s House.

Screening: MovieLand 8