close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

‘Incoming’ Review: Netflix Teen Comedy Delivers Too Many Awkward Moments
news

‘Incoming’ Review: Netflix Teen Comedy Delivers Too Many Awkward Moments

With the drug- and alcohol-addled, gleefully crude and slapstick-violent “Incoming,” Netflix and the Chernin brothers, known for the success of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “The Mick,” attempt to breathe new life into the R-rated teen comedy.

It’s a genre that dates back to “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982) if not earlier, and was perpetuated in films like “American Pie” (1999) and “Superbad” (2007) before falling out of favor as of late, largely due to plot elements that, when viewed through today’s lens, are problematic and in some cases embarrassingly offensive. (See “Sixteen Candles,” which is smart, funny and touching, but also riddled with offensive content.)

I’m all for pushing the boundaries of taste in the name of sharp jokes and portrayals of teenage life that don’t sugarcoat the realities of teenage life. But while “Incoming” easily earns its R rating, the film has a bit of a bad smell, featuring far too many cheap, disgusting jokes and the inclusion of some truly creepy characters whose actions range from morally questionable to downright criminal.

Let’s take a look at some of the storylines that play out during the obligatory One Crazy Night that takes up more than half the film:

  • A popular girl gets drunk at a party and then stumbles across a Tesla driven by two 15-year-olds, thinking it’s her Uber. She demands that the boys take her to Taco Bell, where she wolfs down her food like a maniac in the car. You can probably guess what happens next, but trust me, it’s worse than that.
  • A chemistry teacher in his 50s shows up at the party and starts doing shots with the students. He keeps saying he’s leaving, but he stays.
  • A group of students get drunk on ketamine, with one kid explaining to a newbie, “It’s for cats, I think. Maybe for horses. S—, I forgot.” Crazy!
  • A sophomore sees her ex with someone else and says to her friend about the new girl, “Her head is so big, okay? That’s just a fact. Not that it matters. You know I’m all about body positivity. Beauty is a male construct anyway. Maybe it’s actually a medical issue. What if there’s something wrong and she’s not just ugly?”

There’s more, so much more, but we’ll stop here. Suffice it to say that “Incoming” embraces a number of teen comedy tropes and tries to do something clever and original, but ultimately relies on the easy way out, i.e., when in doubt, have someone get sick or faint or start a brawl.

We get off to a promising start, thanks in large part to the genuine likability of the young cast members. Mason Thames (“The Black Phone”) plays the kind-hearted and smart but insecure Benji, whose friends include fellow incoming freshman Connor (Raphael Alejandro), who’s so small that one senior immediately calls him “Fetus”; Eddie (Ramon Reed), who’s afraid of everything and just wants to stay out of trouble; and Danah, aka Koosh (Bardia Seiri), who aspires to be a baller like his supposedly tough older brother, who’s throwing the big party on the first Friday night of the new school year. (As usual, the parents are out of town and the neighbors seem oblivious to this massive outburst.)

TikTok star Loren Gray plays a drunk girl whose Taco Bell tour comes to an unfortunate end.

TikTok star Loren Gray plays a drunk girl whose Taco Bell tour comes to an unfortunate end.

Ali Gallo plays Benji’s mean-spirited older sister, who tells him, “High school is going to kill you,” while Isabella Ferreira is Bailey, the clichéd girl of Benji’s dreams when he finally works up the courage to tell her how he really feels. TikTok star Loren Gray (she has 54.6 MILLION followers) shows a flair for comedy, even saddled with the thankless role of the aforementioned drunk girl who is all about drinking chalupas. (As for the adults, the versatile and usually reliable Bobby Cannavale has one of the most embarrassing roles of his career as the smooth-talking chemistry teacher, and the terrific Kaitlin Olson has precious little to do as Benji and Alyssa’s mom.)

It’s a good cast. The soundtrack is nice. There’s a decent attempt at turning a particularly over-the-top Teen Movie scene into something at least semi-fresh. I laughed twice, maybe three times. Overall, “Incoming” gets a D+, maybe a C- at best.