It’s not everyday that we see a raunchy Hollywood comedy that presents stereotypical teenage dilemmas from the female perspective, and it’s even more rare for a movie like this to not delve too deep into cliche or worse yet, turn sexist.

‘Blockers’ Blu-Ray Review

First-time director Kay Cannon (writer of the Pitch Perfect franchise) accomplishes exactly this in Blockers, a story of three high school senior girls who agree to make a major decision on one of the biggest nights of their lives, and their overprotective parents who try to, well, block them.

Julie (Kathryn Newton), Sam (Gideon Adlon) and Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) have been best friends since childhood, and just days before prom night, the up until now well-behaved trio agree to lose their virginity that evening. A technological mishap leads their parents (Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barrinholtz) to find out about their “sex pact,” and thus the three horrified adults make it their mission to stop their offspring from having sex at such a young age. Barrinholtz’ Hunter, the most liberal — and irresponsible — of the three parents, is at first opposed to intervening in their children’ personal lives, even in a case like this, but he eventually joins in on the quest.

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Blockers isn’t completely devoid of cliches: there’s a sizable dose of genital and bodily-fluid related humor that probably seems almost obligatory for any teen sex comedy at this point. There are hi-jinks that range from throwing people against a wall, to two characters crashing into each other to a quirky and non-dangerous car collision. However, perhaps one of the craziest and funniest scenes is one that involves Cena — a former wrestler who has definitely cemented his status as a major comedy star — competing with a high schooler to chug beer out of his butt… Yes, you read that correctly: out of his rectum. Barrinholtz getting sprayed in the face and freaking out about the “ass beer” as the cops arrive is just the cherry on the cake for this moment. In an interview with uInterview, Cannon discussed this scene in particular, among other things.

Watch Our uInterview With Kay Cannon

Despite all this, Blockers also has some authentic, semi-serious moments that either explicitly or subtly provide social commentary on issues like parent-child relationships and gender double-standards with regards to sexuality. The latter is perhaps most evidently summed up in a scene where Cena’s character’s wife Marcie (Sarayu Blue) shames her husband and the other two parents for not letting their children make their own decisions with respect to their bodies. Though that debate between both sides certainly has its comedic one-liners, the underlying message is very raw and sadly true: women are often shamed more for wanting to lose their virginity sooner. Add a plot twist regarding one of the three young girls, and this raunchy film is definitely full of laughs.

Bonus features include deleted scenes, a gag reel, and “Rescue mission” and “prom night” featurettes, the latter of which includes the cast and filmmakers discuss how they got their prom looks and share their own personal prom stories. Perhaps the best featurette, however, is “The History of Sex with Ike Barrinholtz,” which is exactly what it sounds like: one of the stars of the movie gives a hilarious 2-minute timeline of human sexuality.

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