The boys are back, and the critics aren’t having it. A lot of things have happened since Entourage, the show, came to an end. One of those things was the cultural ascendance of feminist criticism and ironic misandry, a zeitgeist which somehow doesn’t fit in very well with Vinnie Chase and his posse’s unrepentant skirt-chasing.
Never have I felt prouder of this media sea-change than I am this week, as the cultural and film writers of this great nation take out pens and savage the Entourage film with the best anti-bro disses they can muster. A sampling follows.
Choire Sicha says it’s the worst movie of all time:
Listen people, I saw Waterworld on opening weekend. I know about bad movies. And there is nothing, nothing, nothing that has ever been committed to film that is so utterly culturally, socially, linguistically, intellectually, morally and aesthetically demeaning as Entourage. I laughed four times but only one of those was at something actually funny…. The sole point of the movie is that women are disgusting sneaky tempestuous conniving rotten fuckbots from outer space who must be avoided and/or fooled at every turn.
A.O. Scott breaks out the Axe body spray metaphor:
By the time it reached the end of its HBO run in 2011, “Entourage” had grown staler than last night’s Axe body spray. The passing of a few more years has not improved the aroma. Watching the movie is like finding an ancient issue of a second-tier lad mag — not even Maxim, but Loaded or Nuts — in a friend’s guest bathroom. You wonder how it got there. You wonder how you got there. In my case, it was the same way the people on screen got there: because someone paid me. Why anyone would run the transaction in reverse is puzzling enough to be worth pondering, and also too depressing to contemplate. It’s rare to see a movie of any kind pander to its imagined audience with such unabashed cynicism.
Stephen Rea keeps it succinct:
Let sleeping bros lie.
David Ehrlich has more to say about bros:
In 2015, however, bros only come before hos alphabetically, and what once felt like an innocent tale of wish fulfillment now plays like the masturbatory fantasy of a men’s-rights activist…. the film Ari and Vince are trying to make isn’t half as asinine as the one they’re already in.
Rob Harvilla calls it the “hate-watch of the summer”:
[After the Entourage show went south]… I reevaluated and vastly improved my life, until it all went to hell eight years later when I paid real money to see this movie and therefore watch Drama say stuff like, “Fun is when you forget a girl’s name while you’re fuckin’.” I missed some serious naked boobage while writing that one down for you, by the way: Some comely lass was straddling the guy everyone calls E, but it’s cool, as there were myriad other instances of naked boobage, including the time shortly thereafter where a differently comely lass is straddling E before being rudely interrupted by Ronda Rousey, who high-kicks the bedroom door down after delivering the line, “I think somebody’s fuckin’ in there.”
Ann Hornaday does like Jeremy Piven, though:
Piven is so in the pocket as the smarmy, aggressive, inappropriate Ari that, when the movie he’s in does little more than double down on the bro-ing out, the whiffed opportunities become all the more obvious. … Ari and “Entourage” could have been just the kind of scabrous, self-referential critique of the entertainment industrial complex that would have allowed it to transcend its dubious provenance. Like Vince and his pallies, the “Entourage” movie is content to stay on the bright and shiny surface of a world that’s far more interesting at its hidden, Ari-like core.
Finally, you know you’re in trouble when the maturity and nuance of Sex and the City is being favorably compared to your franchise, by Linda Barnard.