Alexandre Martinho

Good Boys fails as a comedy and as a film. The jokes boil down to: 12 year-olds are cursing. Isn’t that funny? 12 year-olds don’t know what sex toys are. Isn’t that funny? That’s all it is for 90 straight minutes. It’s a pale imitation of Superbad. The central conflict in that movie is that two best friends who have grown up together have to learn to live without each other and be their own person because one of them is going off to college and the other is staying behind. Good Boys has no central conflict until halfway through its runtime when the movie tries to convince us that these 12 year-olds have to learn the same lesson and grow apart. But there’s no reason for it. They’re in sixth grade. They’re in the same class. They can see each other whenever they want. The movie meanders without a purpose and feels episodic and disjointed, which wouldn’t be an issue if it at least was funny. You might be thinking, “Well who cares? It’s just a dumb comedy. Relax.” Well, the movie was marketed as Superbad but with tweens. If you’re going to watch this movie, just know what you’re getting yourself into: an unfunny, mindless film with nothing interesting to say.