THAT'S MY BOY Movie Review
By:MattINRC
SPOILERS:
THAT'S MY BOY is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Period. Before you ask whether I'm some old man without a sense of humor, please read on. It's not that I don't enjoy an unending string of gags thinly disguised as a movie; I've got the blood of Bachelor Party, Beerfest, Baseketball, Happy Gilmore, and Hangover running through my veins. But when a film goes so far beyond raunch and into places no movie should ever go simply because someone ran out of good ideas for real comedy, one must ask whether the genre has gone too far. But it's far worse than anyone imagined. That is where Boy resides, lodged somewhere between B-rated comedy bordering on soft porn. It's a film that should never have been made, one only a moviegoer should consider watching if Hollywood plans to end movie-making entirely, or it's to be the last one before Earth explodes. Yes, it was that bad.
Try this on for size - I have no problem spoiling this thing to death:
12-year-old kid and teacher have sex - a lot of it.
Teacher becomes pregnant before serving a 30 year jail term.
12-year-old kid gets custody of baby, giving him the name Han Solo.
Son runs away at 18 and re-makes his life to hide his embarrassment.
Dad returns years later to get son back and celebrate son's impending marriage.
Dad falls in love with grandma and engages in self-pleasure...often.
Son learns that his fiancee is having sex with her brother, and that she has screwed both his boss and others to get ahead.
Hilarity ensues.
The problem is, we've seen several of these jokes done better: from the overused sex-with-grandma scenario, to the unearthing of several 80's entertainment rejects for humor's sake, including Vanilla Ice, Todd Bridges, Tony Orlando, and a cavalcade of others. Boy is neither funny nor redeeming in any form. Its reliance on topics that should never have been touched does not make it worthy simply because it tried. I'm guessing that a studio exec must have crunched the numbers, thinking an Adam Sandler/Andy Samberg film would do just well enough to make them money, and perhaps attract a following due to the "You've Never Seen This in a Movie Before!" marketing scheme. While that line is true, it doesn't make it any less wrong that we're forced to watch it and uncomfortably laugh because getting angry in a theatre isn't appropriate. I'm not sure who Hollywood expects will turn out to see this, but when director Sean Anders can't land a recognizable leading woman for the fiancee because her role is so offensive, you know there's something wrong.
If the idea of teacher-student relationships leading to pregnancy and incest between the fiancee and her brother are your idea of a good time, then by all means crowd the theater and make billionaires out of its stars. But to any reasonable person looking for a funny movie, That's My Boy is not one of them. It crosses too many lines, leading people to assume that's it somehow become the new gold standard for raunch. All it does is confirm that Sandler's best days are over, and that Samberg should make better choices in his new movie career.
If this is what raunchy comedy means these days, then it's also reasonable to assume that the galaxy will soon collapse under its own weight upon learning about That's My Boy. At least in that scenario, any trace of this film's existence will be swept away.
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