I Find The Weinstein's Lack Of Faith Disturbing

Now, I had to download this one cos I don't know if it'll ever come over to the UK, it had 14 screens or so in America over it's release, though as a comedy film, PG-13 certificate and lots of famous names, and a Star Wars theme it could have been a box-office Smash, Fanboys lies dormant as a cult classic for the future.

After the Weinsteins got their grubby hands on the film, they redid it as an R-rated comedy and removed the cancer storyline that makes the friends team up to steal a workprint of Episode 1, so I guess they'd just be very naughty fans, as opposed to the best of friends trying to do one last thing for their friend before he dies.

Fortunately the theatrical one was Cancer Storyline full, so it had the dramatic effect at the end, and gave the characters more will to steal the film.

I don't want to spoil things for people, but I will go through the cameos, and there are a lot, so if you just want to be surprised, just read the final paragraph for the overview.

The film contains such great cameos as:
Christopher McDonald as one of the main characters' father.
Danny Trejo as a Peyote smoking "Chief"
Ethan Suplee as Harry Knowles
Billy Dee Williams as a Judge
Jaime King as a Hooker
William Shatner as William Shatner (How can he get anything? Because he's William Shatner, duh)
Carrie Fisher as a doctor.
Kevin Smith as himself, Jason Mewes as himself, forced to suck people off in a public restroom, Zak Knutson in this case (The Donkey Show guy)
Ray Park as a THX style Security Guard (Genius)
Will Forte and Craig Robinson as two bumbling THX guards.
Danny McBride as the head of Security.

And each cameo actually works, it's like Dodgeball where they make fun of some of the ones, except whilst it knows how many there are, it's more applause worthy for a face appearing.

Add to that an astonishing cast, with Seth Rogen being the most famous as a Treker who constantly runs into the guys on their quest, and subsequently a Star Wars loving pimp too, no explanation, maybe a deleted scene.
The gang consists of Chris Marquette as Linus, the man with cancer, who doesn't have as much time as you'd think to suffer some of the effects, but is always in a scene.
Sam Huntington as the other normal guy, Eric, a man who left his friends to grow up, and is finally redeeming his nerdy nature here.
Jay Baruchel as Windows, the nerdiest of the bunch, dating online as his only way, and being a complete knowledge dock, and he's as brilliant as usual, just absolutely true to life and hysterical.
Kristen Bell isn't given much time as she's out of the film within 10 minutes and only resurfaces about 50 minutes in, and wraps her stuff up extraordinarily quickly, but she's still as every nerd's dream.
Finally there's Dan Fogler, and here's where I was shocked.
My Fogler knowledge only stems from average voice acting in Horten Hears A Who and Kung Fu Panda, but I know he was in Luck Chuck as the annoying fat funny friend, who seemed to have no funny lines if the trailers said anything, and I know 02 detested him back then.
Here he plays Hutch, a man still living with his parents, driving a van full of Star Wars graffiti and with a big red button for lightspeed, and has full knowledge of, and I quote from Steve Brill here, "The Wars". Many of his comebacks in the film are quotes from Star Wars taken in a new light, and you know what, it's effing hysterical. I'm a fully fledged Star Wars geek ("Oh I'm the geek?") so just hearing him riff on the Emperor and doing a spot on impression of him, and many amazing impressions of Billy Dee Williams, was fantastic, and in fact spawns most of the humour, more next paragraph. A superb performance that's made me actually love Fogler.

The film's comedy is a mix, there's slapsticky running around, cerebral dialogue jokes, quotes and situations, and even just costumes and sound effects and music cue jokes, and most of the time I was pointing, clapping and laughing, saying the lines with the characters, first time I've seen it, but they were Star Wars quotes and had to be placed there, and were, perfectly.

Add to that the emotion behind the final 15 minutes, cued by Remy Zero's fantasic song "Fair" (As heard in Garden State) it's a moving montage of pure beauty leading to the inevitable, and it's darn sweet, with a final sequence that's funny and nice, which sums up this film. It's not some edgy R-rated kind of adult fare, it's soft, but it knows Star Wars enough to be extremely geeky whilst being broad enough for anyone to laugh.
And whilst you may think the film won't work after so many other Star Wars parodies, well, the opening scrawl is twenty million times funnier than the Blue Harvest Family Guy one, really, you'll stop the jokes for a long talk about Angelina Jolie's breasts? No, this one has a countdown to Episode 1 in it, and it's hysterical.

The film, whilst slightly too broad and rushed at some points, still has so many genuine laugh out loud moments, sweet sequences, references, call backs, cameos et al to really become a classic to Star Wars fans, and an easy comedy to watch even for the uninitiated, as in the end it is about friendship too, it's worth importing fro America upon it's DVD release on May 19th, as I can't see it making it to UK shores for a year or ten.
10/10