Welcome to another installment of the TRASH BIN, where we watch the worst movies Hollywood has to offer, according to the critics, and give you our thoughts, good or bad. This week is the alleged comedy by Kevin Smith, YOGA HOSERS.
Lemme bounce a hypothetical situation off you, Occasional Reader. Let's say you're watching a movie you've never seen before, and you suddenly realize that the movie you chose is, to put it politely, rather a disappointment. Or, to put it less politely, you realize the movie you are watching transcends all that is rancid and unpalatable and is locked in a screaming crash-dive to the very darkest heart of "oh-my-sweet-Jesus-I-can't-watch-a-single-second-more-of-this" suckiness. What do you do?
You turn it the heck off, that's what.
It may be a dereliction of my sacred duty as a volunteer Internet film critic, but for the first time in my illustrious career writing for the Merc with a Movie BlogTM, I was unable to finish watching the movie I had picked for the week. Calling Yoga Hosers a bad movie feels like a slur against bad movies. I tried everything I could think of to dig deep and find the strength to see it through. Repeatedly checking the remaining time the movie had left to run; playing with my phone; composing my review in my head; muttering unkind commentary in response whenever the movie gave me an opening; yelling said commentary when muttering was no longer sufficiently cathartic. All these things and more I tried, but Yoga Hosers bested me. It demanded a higher tolerance for a purer form of crap than my own humble immunity. It was Iocaine Powder, and I was Vizzini.
But with all that said, with my shame laid bare, I still want the record to show that I made it nearly halfway through this interminable, gutter-born slog. Enduring 42 minutes out of a 90-minute exercise in Kevin Smith's uniquely subjective interpretation of the concept of "comedy" is a victory in its own right, I say. Especially since, even after getting near the halfway point, I still can't tell you what this movie is about, apart from it being a chronicle of two obnoxious teen girls living in a version of Canada born of the worst TV-sitcom stereotypes, as they go about their business of being obnoxious teen girls.
Lily Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny) and Harley Quinn Smith (daughter of Kevin) prove that the phenomenon of bankable stars using their influence to get acting gigs for their talentless offspring is not just for Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Think of a teen girl stereotype, and it likely shows up in this movie, turned up past eleven and toward screaming, unchecked twelve. Every place where the movie could have been funny -- the pair having panic attacks and faining spells after their phones are confiscated by a teacher, their lousy job working in a convenience store -- is mercilessly wrung dry of every last drop of humor and then left on display, twisted and dead, in a show of what happens when a comedy film is directed by a person with no concept of the idea that "less is more".
So to spare myself further discomfort, I promptly quit that field of battle and read the Merc's much more favorable review of this picture to try and get an idea of just what the dickens was the point of it all. Apparently the two girls end up fighting Nazis made of bratwurst, which I did see a little of in my viewing before I cried no mas. So, okay, points for unchecked weirdness. But why is it, when these "Bratzis" (ugh) burst open, their entrails look like a mass of french fries and marijuana buds?
I just ... no. Nuts to this. I can accept a great many things from my movies. I can accept a magic ticket that opens a door to Movie World. I can accept anthropomorphized computer programs going to a nightclub. God help me, I can accept Tom Cruise as a German! But that is a bridge too far.
It may come as a surprise to you at this point, but I am not a Kevin Smith fan. I know; it's a shocking revelation. Counting Yoga Hosers, I've now tried five of his movies, and I find I like Kevin Smith best when he isn't trying to be funny. I very much enjoyed 2011's Red State, but otherwise I'd rather be doing almost anything other than watching one his movies. Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy were the other three movies I tried, and they are just not my cup o' tea.
I wish I could rate Yoga Hosers in negative numbers, but I think the above rant expresses my distaste for this film more than any mere minus sign could, so I'll content myself with a zero, and find a movie I like for my next review. On the plus side, this will likely mean I use the zero rating less frequently in the future. I'll be hard pressed to find another movie I dislike as much as this one.
Yoga Hosers is rated PG-13 for crude humor, sexual references, comic violence, and brief drug material.
CRITICS' SCORES:
Rotten Tomatoes: 19%
ROBERT'S SCORE: 0/10
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