Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Josh Greenbaum)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki

[Henry Gale]

Truly wracking my brain to think of the last time I laughed this much with a new comedy (my first and clearest thought being Popstar, which somehow, horrifyingly, was already six years ago), and because of that, my only feelings resembling negatives or regrets towards this movie are that I watched it alone at home and not in a theatre with a raucously giddy audience. Hopefully someday....

What a perfectly absurd delight. If studios want any tips or reminders as to the type of comedies they should be greenlighting these days, just point to this, as the very fact that it has no prior blueprint or obvious direct comparison should be exactly the point. Just trust the talent and track record. The objective of every sequence in this movie seems to be to set you up into feeling like you've comfortably settled into its groove, feeling like you've gotten a good grasp on its schtick, and then instantly serving you a freshly insane device to roll into its greater self like a cinematic Katamari Damacy ball. I simply cannot admire it enough.

I really, really hope it doesn't take Wiig and Mumolo another decade to get their next script produced, because I know if this can sneak up on us and deliver like it does (and, dare I say, I already like this even more than their hallowed previous movie, though I now admire each of them even more for their differences) then I'll take even a half-baked showcase of their creative instincts immediately.

[Mal]

Mixed on this. Its charming, bright, enthusiastic, goofy in some unique ways- which a lot of comedy movies should be but are not. However, for all this absurdity... its a little too much and too hollow to justify the runtime. Its maybe 20 minutes too long, losing my interest [

Show Spoiler

some time after they had the buried treasure threesome... which, I will say, was a spirited way of conveying heteroflexibility between the women as an extension of their adoration of each other

]
The commitment to the bit has enough good though that I'd like to see Barb and Star on another journey. Send them to Australia or anywhere else they can bask in the sun with their personal joy for each other. And bring Jamie Dornan along again, I hope he had a good time. It looked like he was?

[Peng]

I watched Anchorman for the first time a day before this, and was thinking that even though I often struggle with this brand of skit-like comedy, that one's hit-to-miss jokes are so impressively high as to be overall a fun time. Well, Barb and Star somehow transcends that comedy barrier of mine, or even the concept of "hit-to-miss", really. The film parses out its world's truly unique, wonderfully weird ecosystem as it goes along, accumulating ramped-up jokes and zany bits that seem to beam out from its two lead writers unscathed. It's a comedic universe so fully vibed throughout in its own heightened surrealism that even any supposed "miss" gets absorbed into the film as part of its world-building detail. And the jokes and details really come non-stop, whether through performance, writing, or visual; the tossed-off speed and casual cartoon logic in which they're delivered throughout at times remind me of a live-action The Emperor's New Groove, and for me there's not a higher compliment to a comedy than that. Plus, the whole film is just loads of escapist oddball charm and non-stop good vibe, even with supervillain's outsized evil plan and all. 8/10

[quido8_5]

Sure, why not? More hits than misses, likable characters, good performances, not reductive. ***