Movies From the Hat 7 – #1 – Allie’s Pick – Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

This is my 3946th Review

Thanks to Allie of Often Off Topic for this recommendation.

“Well guys, we’ve made it to the end of the summer in one piece, except for a few campers who are lepers.” – Beth

Number of Times Seen – 1 (9 Apr 2018)

Brief Synopsis – On the final day of summer camp, the counselors try their very best to make it a memorable summer.

My Take on it – As a kid, I went to my fair share of summer camps in the 80’s and early 90’s as both a camper and a counselor.

This film does a great job of getting the atmosphere of the camps of those days just right.

Many of the scenes are hilarious and the characters despite being very over the top still manage to keep the viewers attention.

The problem here is that there isn’t really a central theme or storyline to the film and that hurts it the most because it’s a real mess when it comes to a coherent plot.

The cast is superb and features a who’s who of some of the best actors nowadays so I guess it’s a good thing that this was made back in 2001 when most of them were completely unknown.

They try too hard to tell multiple storylines on the one hand and try to make this feel like an updated version of Meatballs (1979) on the other hand.

Unfortunately, neither of those attempts seem to work very well.

This might have worked even better as a variety of skits about summer camp because there is so much to laugh at here.

The problem is that the string connecting all the parts is unfortunately far too weak to hold up.

Bottom Line – A complete mess of a film storywise that has some really hilarious bits thrown in. The cast is amazing and would be quite hard to get now based on the success of many of them. Very nostalgic of the way summer camps were in the 80’s and that part works quite well.  This tries to be a n updated version of Meatballs (1979), but just doesn’t manage to do it right regardless.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The owners of Camp Towanda (where the movie was filmed) were told that this was going to be a family comedy. They were mortified when they saw the final cut of the film. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)

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