Wet Hot American Summer (2001): B-

Wet Hot American Summer, a parody of late ‘70s/early ’80s horndog comedies like Porky’s and Meatballs, undertakes the task of spoofing the seemingly un-spoofable. However, its satire is so deliberately stupid and scattershot – and its random, self-referential sketches so clumsily constructed – that the goofy film also functions as a meta commentary on parodies themselves. That, or it’s just a dumb – and fitfully funny – send-up of an already dumb genre. Either way, David Wain’s comedy (co-written with star Michael Showalter) charts the final twenty-four hours of the summer season at Camp Firewood, where stereotypical counselors (the romantic, the hottie, the slut, the virgin) search for love and one last screw while either abusing or ignoring their adolescent charges. Sloppily (or astutely, depending on your perspective) mixing comedic tones, Wet Hot American Summer – the brainchild of former members of now-defunct comedy troupe The State – is roughly a half hour longer than its conceit warrants. Yet a sequence in which the counselors’ trip to town devolves into a drug and robbery-fueled nightmare is inspired, and the wealth of amusing off-the-cuff asides (such as Paul Rudd’s nasty make-out sessions, or his habit of tossing children out of his moving van) more than make up for every scene involving the brutally unfunny Janeane Garofalo.