Blockers

Remember "American Pie?" That classic comedy gets a reboot with "Blockers," the new R-rated teen comedy that is deftly directed by newcomer Kay Cannon (her previous work include writing the "Pitch Perfect" scripts). Except this time, the women take charge in the persons of three high school seniors - Julie (Kathryn Newton), Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) - who make a pact that each will lose their virginity on the night of their senior prom. That is, until a parent of each teen - Julie's clinging mom Lisa (Leslie Mann), Kayla's jock dad Mitchell (John Cena) and Sam's long-absent-from-her-life father Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) - learn of the pact and set out to "cock block" them.

While the premise is simple and the plot predictable, what makes this R-rated teen comedy work so well is that screenwriters Brian and Jim Kehoe treat its teenage characters (and their sexual lives) with intelligence and sensitivity. The joke here is that the kids are more sensible about sex (and everything, for that matter) than any of their parents. This leaves the adults to provide most of the film's R-rated comedy, which includes a sequence where Cena participates in a butt-chugging contest in which beer is funneled up his ass, and another in which Cena and Barinholtz interrupt a naked couple playing a foreplay game that becomes uncomfortably touchy-feely.

Those scenes may give the film its notoriety, but what makes the movie so satisfying is the way Cannon develops the inter-generational relationships, mining the underlying personal conflicts while maintaining a light tone. Lisa just cannot face the idea of Julie having sex, and has issues with her daughter going across the country to attend college. Mitchell's overprotective nature has him all but stalking Kayla's hipster date. And Hunter must make up for lost time to connect with Sam after all but abandoning his daughter in a messy divorce. Cannon deftly balances the sentiment with the raunchy comedy, ending the film with touching authenticity. She smoothly integrates a gay plotline involving Sam's coming out that could have been the basis of a movie in itself.

Cannon also has a great rapport with her cast. Leslie Mann's ability to take flights of manic fancy is quite funny to watch; John Cena's zealous jock dad is endearing, and Ike Barinholtz turns what starts as a one-note caricature into a surprisingly sympathetic character. The three teen protagonists are smartly delineated: Kathryn Newton never slips into becoming a clich� as the teen princess Julie; Gideon Adlon makes Sam's struggles about her sexuality most believable; and, best of all, Geraldine Viswanathan all but steals the film as the voracious Kayla. She is a talent to watch.

It may not be a huge deal, but in this year when Hollywood is being criticized for its lack of female visibility and equality, "Blockers" offers witty commentary on teens and their sexuality within the confines of raunchy comedy. It has more than enough raucous moments, but it never patronizes to patriarchal attitudes when it matters; instead, it makes fun of them with equal amounts of sly wit and glee.