Fanboys Blu-ray offers decent video and solid audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Four extreme "Star Wars" fans and childhood friends drive across the U.S. to Skywalker Ranch
in order to sneak a peak at the yet unreleased "Episode 1: Phantom Menace" as one last
hoorah for their dying friend.
Has every generation in the cinema era had its own epochal films, movies that became some sort of cultural touchstone for large percentages of the population? For some of our parents or grandparents, it might have been Gone With the Wind or Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz. A generation later the burgeoning "juvenile delinquent" demographic went wild for Rebel Without a Cause, while more mainstream audiences flocked in droves to such epics as Ben Hur. The 1960's saw a spate of high profile musicals which captured the public's fancy, from West Side Story (actually kind of an interesting companion piece to Rebel) to The Sound of Music. With the advent of flower power and the Love Generation, edgier fare like The Graduate and Easy Rider spoke to the youthful masses with a new insouciant voice. In fact the 1970's was such a counter-cultural revolution, film-wise, that it's really ironic that the decade's most lasting contribution was a throwback to "event" movies of days of yore, a big, operatic science fiction spectacular that came out of nowhere and more or less overnight became a phenomenon the likes of which had rarely been seen for years. It was, of course, Star Wars. For kids born from about 1960 or so on, George Lucas' foray into Joseph Campbellian hero's journey territory, all wrapped up with then-"wow" factor special effects, became something indelible, the sort of once in a lifetime experience that became life changing, especially for those, shall we say, a little prone to geekdom.
Eric Bottler doesn't want to spend the rest of his life selling cars.
Fast forward twenty or so years. After two blockbuster sequels (whether or not completely critically acclaimed), the Star Wars franchise had become a multi-media phenomenon relegated mostly to tie-in products, with no actual celluloid supporting them. Suddenly George Lucas announced he was going back to the land of Wookies and Skywalkers, picking up the Star Wars story from a generation earlier than the original triptych, and of course fans went rabid. What would the new film be about? Would a backstory be provided for Darth Vader? Who could possibly fill Alec Guinness' iconic shoes as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi? And what was Lucas thinking by including a CGI character named Jar Jar Binks who spoke in a sort of quasi-Jamaican patois? (OK, maybe that last question came after the film's release, but you get the idea). There had rarely been a media onslaught at this level about a forthcoming film, and it no doubt whipped the already rabid Star Wars fan base into a mouth-frothing fury. That, in essence, is the delicious set up for Fanboys, a big hearted film that means well but never really delivers on its premise, as it follows a gaggle of childhood friends, now young adults making their first stumbling entrées into "real life," as they decide to storm the battlements at Lucas' Marin County Skywalker Ranch in order to steal a rough cut of Episode One: The Phantom Menace. This road trip is made more full of pathos (ostensibly, anyway) by having one of the group dying from terminal cancer, giving the trek a supposed emphasis and emotional import that the film's cartoonish realization never completely jives with.
Fanboys follows the exploits of Eric Bottler (Sam Huntington), the only one of his childhood cadre to completely move on from adolescence, albeit unhappily so, having gone to work for his car salesman father (Christopher McDonald in a fun if underdeveloped cameo). Bottler reunites with his former friends on Halloween 1998, when a bunch of them come dressed as Star Wars characters. These misfits include Linus (Chris Marquette), the cancer victim; Windows (Jay Baruchel), a computer nerd who has an internet "companion" who evidently has blueprints to Skywalker Ranch, enabling the group's invasion scenario; Hutch (Dan Fogler), a pudgy dork living in his mother's garage who insists it's a "carriage house"; and the requisite feminine tagalong, Zoe (Kristen Bell), who seems the only emotionally balanced person in the throng. Fanboys quickly gives us sketches of these characters' relationships, honing in on a long festering wound between Bottler and Linus, who once dreamed of being a comic book writing and drawing team. Bottler is unaware of Linus' terminal illness until the other friends fill him in, making their long ago hatched plan to drive to Marin to get into Skywalker Ranch now something which either needs to be quickly realized or forever thrown on the lifetime regret pile.
With that promising set up, Fanboys had the opportunity to be both loony and touching. It certainly aims for both, but too often goes the way of juvenile humor which comes at the expense of real character development. In fact when the film does pause for occasional character moments, it seems unsettling and fake feeling, never a good sign for a film that wants to have its comedic cake and eat its pathos, too. The film does best in its smaller comedic bits, like its hilarious send up of the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek fans, which plays out in a couple of patently goofy set pieces which pay off down the line with a laugh out loud cameo by a certain enterprising actor (sorry, couldn't resist). (There are actually a handful of sometimes amusing cameos, including Seth Rogen as three different characters, largely unrecognizable as at least one of them, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Kevin Smith). Where the film falters is both in its over the top lunacy, such as Hutch's van being equipped with its own version of hyperdrive, and even more so with its oddly tentative approach toward Linus' mortality and what that means for his crew.
Fanboys does do very well by its young stars, all of whom manage to craft semi-believable characters whose love for a film has literally altered their lives. Director Kyle Newman gets a lot of natural repartee from these relatively inexperienced thespians, and it lends the film a sort of nice verité quality that at least marginally ameliorates some of the missteps the film takes from a writing standpoint. There are several laugh out loud moments in Fanboys, but they're sprinkled a little less liberally than they should have been, and unfortunately the film's halting attempts to give the audience some emotional attachment to the characters is too often undercut by both unfunny moments and an overall unevenness of tone. It's perhaps fitting that this homage to Phantom Menace apes that film's good intentions as well as Lucas' own less than perfect realization of those intentions.
Fanboys arrives on Blu-ray with a fair to middling AVC encoded 1080p image (with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio). The film was obviously shot on a less than summer blockbuster budget, and so some of the softness of this image is properly directly attributable to the source material. While close-ups and midrange shots fare best, there's a noticeable lack of detail here that will probably disappoint a lot of videophiles. Colors are appealingly accurate and generally well saturated, but contrast is often less than optimal, giving the many night and dimly lit scenes a murky quality that is also hampered by inconsistent black levels. I have never seen Fanboys on SD-DVD, so I can't honestly give an opinion on the quality up-tick here, but my hunch is it's relatively minor.
Fanboys offers at least a few fun sonic moments on its lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, courtesy of several authentic Star Wars sound effects which George Lucas graciously provided to the project. Surround activity is rather sparse throughout this film, however, limited mostly to some of the Las Vegas casino scenes, as well as busier crowd moments like the first showdown between our heroes and their Star Trek nemeses. There is good clarity here, however, with dialogue presented crisply and cleanly and Mark Motherbaugh's minimal score well mixed into the proceedings. Some of the foley effects provide a little low end oomph, and the brief hallucinogenic segment after the guys consume peyote has some nice echoing pan effects. There's nothing overtly showy to this soundtrack, but it gets the job done cleanly and professionally.
Fanboys offers its cult audience a mini-glut of supplements, although they're all in SD and several are culled from the same source material and repeat snippets of the same footage. The extras include:
A noisy Commentary with some of the principal cast, director Newman, and the writers is like a reunion party—not much real information, but often fun to listen to;
An optional, and pretty useless Introduction with Newman and producer Matthew Perniciaro;
Fanboys Goes Global (6:12), where Newman and Perniciaro discuss getting wind of the film on Ain't It Cool news and how their relationship with each other and the project blossomed;
Deleted Scenes (7:49) offers six short snippets, including an extended scene with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes which will probably be of most interest to fans;
The Truth About Fanboys (5:49) is a strange little EPK-fest with the bulk of the theatrical trailer intercut with brief interview segments;
Star Wars Parallel (5:18) offers the actors trying to convince us how their various characters relate to those in Lucas' films;
4Fanboys and 1 Fangirl (8:49) has the stars talking about each others' characters and Newman discussing the casting process;
The Choreography (3:40) details the dance scene in the gay biker bar;
Disturbances in the Force (11:38) is a compilation of seven webisodes used to promote the film.
A Digital Comic Book and an Image Gallery (which "plays" rather than having to be stepped through) round out the supplements.
It's hard to be a complete curmudgeon when dealing with a film that obviously has its heart in the right place, as Fanboys indubitably does. That still doesn't excuse some sloppy writing and a tone that lurches to and fro like the Millennium Falcon in need of a tune up. Anyone who's ever deeply loved a movie, whether or not it was Star Wars, will certainly recognize themselves, at least passingly, in the geeks of Fanboys. For that reason, the film is probably worth an evening's rental for a laugh or two.
Vivendi Visual Entertainment has announced Fanboys for Blu-ray release on July 27. This comedy about a group of Star Wars fans who plan to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch was one of the productions from The Weinstein Company that didn't get a Blu-ray release ...
