“Star Wars” fanatics and casual viewers can all enjoy the great new “Star Wars” epic adventure, “Fanboys.”
The year is 1998 and a group of “Star Wars” nerds from Ohio decide to go on a road trip to George Lucas’ famous Skywalker Ranch in California to steal a rough cut of “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” six months before it hits theatres.
They all want to see the movie before it comes out, but mostly it’s for one of their friends, who is dying from cancer and won’t get to see it before it hits theaters.
One would expect that in order to enjoy the movie, you would need to be a big “Star Wars” geek.
Or at the least, audiences should be knowledgeable about things like the endless debate of who shot first, Han or Greedo.
It’s really not like that at all. Anyone who has watched the saga should understand the entire movie.
There are parts of ultimate geek-dom, but the film explains it for those that wouldn’t understand.
The movie has a nice blend of “Star Wars” references and good time road trip comedic action.
The van they are driving in throughout the movie was so funny. It almost makes you want to put an R2-D2 on the top of your car too.
When going into “hyper-drive,” the R2-D2 on the top of the van even makes the recognizable R2-D2 noises.
The core audience of this film should also pick up on references to other films (i.e. “Back to the Future” and “Men in Black”).
This allowed the characters to be more realistic than if the film just stuck with “Star Wars” jokes. They weren’t all single-minded. They were pretty well-rounded characters.
The cameos were also great.
After seeing Carrie Fischer (Princess Leia) and Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), I hoped to see a cameo from George Lucas himself shot as a God among the nerds.
Unfortunately, that never happens.
William Shatner’s cameo was almost like that, however.
There were other cameos that aren’t from the “Star Wars” fame, like Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen, that were perfect.
This is a film that has you cracking up constantly and makes you feel good at the end.
And there’s nothing funnier than an all-out brawl between “Star Wars” fans and Trekkies.
Even if you’re not a “Star Wars” fan, if you’ve seen the movies (at least the original trilogy and Episode 1) you should enjoy it.