Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
The prequel to the 2001 cult film, with the now-40-plus original cast playing the same teenage campers and counselors, which is the entire joke and it never stops being funny. David Wain and Michael Showalter’s parody of ’80s summer camp sex comedies plays every cliché straight while escalating into absurdism: a rock star (Chris Pine, pre stardom, magnificent) hiding at camp, a toxic waste canister subplot, a government lab under the camp, and the staff drama you remember from the movie.
The cast. Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, plus newcomers Michael Cera, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, is a comedy all star game. Eight episodes of escalating non sequiturs and total commitment to bits (the talking can of vegetables!). The gags per-minute rate is enormous; the dud rate is admirably low. It’s sketch comedy stretched into a serialized farce, and it works because everyone commits completely to material that knows it’s ridiculous.
Verdict: Watch it. The actors are older, the summer is younger, and it all somehow works.
