BoyTown

Caught this movie in Hobart's premier theatre- Eastlands, The Bogan Capital of the world.

After taking three minutes to eat popcorn, we proceeded to watch the 88 minutes (apparently) of Mick molloys brainchild, Boytown.

Being a reasonable fan of molloy and a cream-your-jeans fan of Wayne hope, me and my super best friends were looking forward to a quiet stroll along the generic, choreographed, lip-synced lane of boy-bands. A lane filled with a mix of treacherous storyline ravines, puddles of genius and a lot of bumpy plot twists in the road.

The idea is great. Boyband. Sure, its been done to death, but taking a fresh angle of mature boy-bands is quite a hilarious concept. The beginning of the movie dragged a lot and could have been saved with some witty dialogue, however most of the jokes were fairly predictable and lacked actually being funny. There were some good ideas, but were very poorly executed.

As the movie went on, it started to get better. Lachy Hulme was very good as the record company owner, unlike Glenn Robbins at least his character had dimension. Glenn definitely didn't suit this role, as an audience member, it was difficult to get emotionally attached to him. He is way better acting as a character. (Kath & Kim, Uncle Arthur, Russel Coight, Donkey Kong)

There were some very funny moments within around the middle of the movie. The Rio de Janeiro sexy cabaret singer part was easily the funniest part in the movie. Great cameo from Akmal. The songs sung throughout were well done. The crying song was easily the best sounding song, I'd purchase that faster than a fox on crack. The funniest song was definitely about that "special" time of the month. Very clever indeed. I don't know if Molloy wrote all those, if so, kudos.

The end, well I won't ruin it...

Yes I will.

Everyone becomes possessed by ghosts of robots from the future.

Seem ridiculous? It actually would have been a better ending than in the movie. I love those type of endings in the movie, but this one was done poorly. Gary Eck did absolutely nothing for me in the film, and was responsible for some of the worst lines in the movie. Rod Laver scene with Gary = Worst line I have ever heard in a movie, ever.

This is the best one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdK-aLGxV0Y

Anyways, all in all a fairly average type of comedy. The songs are great, the dialogue not so, story lines are very weak, needed more Wayne hope and tony martin. Bob Franklin could have had a bigger role too, not sure what happened to his little story in the middle either.

But, if you are a fan of molloys, you will like it. In the meantime if you want some awesome Australian comedy, anything by Shaun Micallef will whip this movie like a jockey on a horses ass.

I've been a huge fan of Mick Molloy ever since the old Late Show days. I listen to his radio show each day, and I even have a signed copy of The Brown Album. Crackerjack and Bad Eggs were both very funny movies, and so I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed? It's a real shame when you get so much comedic talent in a movie, both in front and behind the scenes, and yet the result really isn't all that funny. It sort of sits at a slight giggle level for the whole time, and only rarely gets any better than that. The highlight is the songs, which are all pretty well done. It's obvious that the songs were what they spent all their time writing, and then just fitted the movie in around them. The story is so basic, it all just happens with nothing really happening, and I know that makes no sense but it's just the way it is. It's like, lets get the band back together, OK the bands back together, now we'll make some records, OK we're done. And the ending? Well, it's kinda funny, and kinda weird. It makes sense, but it's sort of in a we-don't-know-how-to-end-it kinda way. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch it? Who knows. It's far from terrible, but far from good. Which means it's solidly average. There is far worse than this around, especially when you compare it to other recent Australian comedies, but the Molloy boys, and everyone else involved, can do a lot better than this.

I waited a long time to watch this film. I did sit though it in one go without losing interest, but it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped. Here in the UK I've have been hearing Molloy, Robbins & co on streamed radio for years. They are grossly funny, but this film didn't match up to that level. The funniest part was Molloy's real-life banter with his young 'double' in the extras. And what a waste of Tony Martin. On the other hand, the songs were clever and memorable, Sally Phillips is always super, and I was impressed with Mick's penduluming.

Being a fan of Mick Molloy I was looking forward to seeing his new movie. Whilst is was good it is not a side splitting fun-fest as expected. There were no snappy lines or any snappy dialogue. I think Mick may have been to busy sharing the writing around to all characters to worry about giving himself (or others) enough funny material. The songs are mildly amusing in an obvious way not in a subtle way ie "Cellulite lady" or "Dishpan hands". "I cry" is more of the subtle variety I expected where you have to listed to the words to get a laugh. There were too many periods of the movie where there were no laughs at all.

Anyway it's certainly not a dud but like so many movies nowadays could have been a lot better. Do we now have to wait another 4 years for his next effort?

This movie is probably too subtle for its own good. Firstly it satirises boy-band/pop music, which is a fairly easy target, but it also satirises the very genre of 'getting the band back together' type films. Because it plays the cliches it satirises completely straight, at times it appears exactly like the bad movies it parodies. The performances are generally good and, given so earnestly in the face of deliberately cringeworthy dialogue and songs, are a subtle highlight. The predictable and extremely fantastic course the film takes sat somewhere between brilliant satire and mediocre plot development. Still, an enjoyable film with a little more going on than first appears.