SENIOR YEAR (NETFLIX) (2022)
SYNOPSIS: After a cheerleader (Rebel Wilson) falls off a pyramid and into a 20 year coma, she wakes up as a 37-year-old woman, ready to return to high school, regain her status and claim the prom queen crown that eluded her.
MOVIE REVIEW:
You might do a double take when you saw how much weight Rebel Wilson had lost. In case you aren’t familiar with the name, she is fat Amy from the Pitch Perfect series. Weight issue aside, the funny actress from Australia is back in yet another self-produced flick after Isn’t It Romantic and The Hustle.
Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice from Spider-man: Far from Home) is an Australian migrant who aims to be the year’s prom queen, a cheer squad captain and the school’s most popular girl until tragedy strike during a cheer performance when her fellow teammate, Tiffany sabotaged her.
Two decades later, Stephanie (Rebel Wilson) woke up after a long coma as a 37-year-old woman but with an intelligence level of a 17-year-old. While her best friends, Martha (Mary Holland) and Seth (Sam Richardson) has become the school principal and librarian respectively, Stephanie only dreams of returning to school to finish her prom and winning the title of prom queen.
Like an average disposable Adam Sandler comedy, Senior Year takes a flimsy silly idea and conceived it into a feature length movie that run almost two hours. To say the least, the laughs are sporadic mostly owing to Stephanie trying to cope with the latest 2022 trends such as social media and tech. Although she is a major walking miracle according to science, the movie is more concerned about her fish-out-of-water scenario liked mistaking Lady Gaga for Madonna than anything else.
The movie plods along with mainly Stephanie trying to get back at her arch-rival, Tiffany and her now soon to be graduating daughter, her ex-beau, Blaine who is now married to Tiffany by the way. Not forgetting some other scattered meaningful messages about growing up, BFFs, secret crush and LGBT elements thrown into it. Also, a wave of nostalgia is going to hit those who grew up listening to Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Mandy Moore because the soundtrack is chock full of them.
Rebel Wilson is fast turning into the next Melissa McCarthy and Amy Schumer with her distinct brand of crass, laidback comedy. As a result of Wilson being such a strong comedic persona, the rest of the cast namely Mary Holland, Sam Richardson and Chris Parnell who plays her doting dad are constantly overshadowed by her. Worth mentioning is ex-teen idol Alicia Silverstone popping up in a surprise cameo as an Uber driver.
Senior Year lands somewhere between a trashy R-rated comedy and a high school theme comedy. The humour is somewhat milder than the usual offerings, filled with nothing more than typical sexual innuendos. With Wilson’s brand of laughs being kind of hit-and-miss, this is very much passable entertainment until Netflix’s next hit comes along.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
