Review #1,054: 'Everybody Wants Some!!' (2016)

Fresh off the critical success of Boyhood, a coming-of-age project 12 years in the making, writer/director Richard Linklater has returned to the genre he no doubt by now feels entirely comfortable in, the slacker comedy. Dubbed as a 'spiritual sequel' to one of his most beloved movies, Dazed and Confused (1993), Everybody Wants Some!! - a title taken from a Van Halen song - follows a group of baseball jocks in college over the course of 3 days before class, and arguably real life, finally starts.

It's Texas, 1980, and freshman and promising pitcher Jake (Blake Jenner) arrives at one of the two decrepit neighbouring houses set aside for the college baseball team, where he is greeted with a mixture of both excited curiosity and suspicious disdain. Finnegan (Glen Powell), Dale (J. Quinton Johnson) and Roper (Ryan Guzman), a few of the older students who welcome Jake and fellow freshman Plummer (Temple Baker) with a bit more warmth, take the new arrivals on a car journey around campus, where they prepare themselves for a few days of booze, drugs, parties, and trying to convince members of the opposite sex to sleep with them.

Linklater has a distinct feel for a sense of place. Like Dazed and Confused, he somehow manages to conjure up feelings of nostalgia for viewers who weren't even alive at the time. Having been born in 1984, I sadly wasn't there for the 1976 of Dazed or the 1980 of Everybody Wants Some!!, but the two films feel as if you're watching something made at the time rather than a period piece. Questionable fashion choices and even more questionable facial-hair are all present here, as is the obligatory classic soundtrack. which features an amusing rendition of Rapper's Delight amongst a more rock-based sound. The biggest issue people may have the film is that nothing much happens at all, so Linklater takes a huge gamble in assuming audiences will warm to its hefty ensemble.

After all, the bulk of the characters are indistinguishable jocks doing bong hits and offering their unique blend of wisdom for the majority of the film. While this approach may run its course before the credits roll, there is some genuine wisdom to be found here, along with a tinge of sadness. Everybody Wants Some!! is a love letter to that time of your life when you are filled with optimism and the world is yours to explore, and Jake and his friends' journey of discovery and fulfilment is a rite-of-passage experienced by most young men and women. It could also be interpreted as a search for identity as the group wander from their usual disco haunt and try out line-dancing, a punk concert, and a themed costume party set up by performing arts majors, including the auburn-haired girl of Jake's dreams (Zoey Deutch). Call it what you will, but the film's power lies within Linklater's eye for nostalgia, delivering a final shot that captures more feeling than most films struggle to create in 90 minutes.


Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, Zoey Deutch, Temple Baker, J. Quinton Johnson, Juston Street, Wyatt Russell, Tyler Hoechlin, Ryan Guzman
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,046: 'Vampire Academy' (2014)

Mark Waters' Vampire Academy, based on the hugely successful series of young-adult novels by author Richelle Mead, spends so much of its 100-plus minute running time trying to explain itself and attempting to conjure the same level of mass hysteria that surrounded the likes of the Twilight and Harry Potter books, that it isolates nigh-on everybody apart from those already completely in love with the source material. It's an uncomfortable hybrid of the aforementioned Twilight (sexy vampires!) and Harry Potter (a secret school for magical types!), yet makes Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling's work seem like Dostoyevsky in comparison.

Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) and Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry) have run away from St. Vladimir's Academy, trying desperately to live like real humans do. Rose is a Dhampir, a half-vampire, half-human hybrid who has dedicated her life to protecting Lissa, a royal Moroi (peace-loving vampire), and the two share a psychic connection which allows Rose to occasional eavesdrop on Lissa. A year after fleeing the school, they are re-captured by 'dreamy' Russian Dhampir Dimitri (Danila Kozlovsky), who whisks them both back into the care of headmistress Kirova (Olga Kurylenko), but not before battling off some red-eyed Strigoi (evil vampire). Once back, Lissa is the victim of a series of attacks, including dead animals being left for her to find, and threats scrawled on her wall written in blood.

It's the slightest of plots, yet Vampire Academy still somehow manages to feel over-stuffed. While Rose struggles to explain the entire universe as well as several characters' back-stories via her own brand of sarcastic narration ripped shamelessly from Juno (2007), there's little time to catch up with what is actually going on and no time at all to care. Even for a film that feels like it was based on a teenagers' work of clumsily sculpted fan-fiction (although I haven't read the book), the complete absence of wit and social observation comes as a shock given the film boasts the talents of Daniel Waters, who wrote the wonderfully dark Heathers (1988), and his brother Mark, director of the surprisingly hilarious Mean Girls (2004). Any plans for a franchise were quickly and thankfully scrapped when the film bombed upon release, and it's not difficult to see why. The whole experience is stilted and awkward, and Deutch is unbearably annoying throughout.


Directed by: Mark Waters
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Dominic Sherwood, Olga Kurylenko, Sarah Hyland
Country: USA/UK

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie