Incoming (2024)
Directed by: Dave Chernin and John Chernin
Premise: A group of friends attend their first week of high school. They get invited to a party and hope to make a name for themselves in the school’s social scene.
What Works: A lot of Hollywood films about high school students are cast with actors who do not look like teenagers. The young actors of Incoming mostly look like they might be in high school, especially those playing freshmen, and that gives the film some credibility that it otherwise lacks. Bobby Cannavale is cast as a chemistry teacher who ends up at the party, showing the students drinking games while simultaneously explaining the science of it. Cannavale is the best part of Incoming despite the fact that the filmmakers don’t know what to do with him.
What Doesn’t: Everything about Incoming is cliché. This is a weak imitation of movies made by John Hughes and Judd Apatow, namely Sixteen Candles and Superbad, but it lacks the qualities that made those movies successful. Even when they made cringy or stupid decisions, the characters of those other movies were empathetic and memorable. The central characters of Incoming are all bland. They’re flat character types and there’s no human spark to anyone. The story is similarly uninspired. Incoming is a one-crazy-night-in-high-school story and these narratives are typically about characters learning something about themselves. Their desires are very adolescent such as anxiety about their school crush or needing to impress the in-crowd. No one in Incoming learns anything about themselves nor do they reevaluate their friendships or priorities. Nothing in this movie is engaging. Incoming is intermittently funny but none of the gags are outrageous or creative. It’s a film going through the motions, imitating scenarios we’ve seen before. Every generation gets a few movies like this but there’s nothing here that is specific to this cultural moment. Compare Incoming to Booksmart; the 2019 film was a much better version of this story partly because it felt distinctly of its cultural moment the same way Sixteen Candles and American Pie did for the 1980s and 90s. The canned quality of Incoming’s characters and story keeps it from making any kind of impression. As a related problem, neither the characters nor the story ever feels believable. Cannavale’s character curses in the classroom and the students don’t speak or behave in ways that resemble human beings. It’s a story built around hijinks and cliches instead of characters.
Disc extras: Available on Netflix.
Bottom Line: Incoming has little in it that is memorable or interesting. It’s clearly been made with affection for the high school comedies of earlier eras but it comes across as a plastic imitation, lacking the humanism that made those movies so endearing.
Episode: #1011 (September 1, 2024)