Director: Frank Coraci
Starring: Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler
Running Time: 105 Mins
Certificate: 12
Extras: Gag-Reel, Deleted Scenes, Cast Featurette, Learning How to Fight Featurette, Back to School Featurette, Gino Vs. Ritchie Featurette, Three Amigos Featurette, The Pros Featurette.
Many people have been waiting years for a movie in which Kevin James gets repeatedly punched in the face! HERE COMES THE BOOM delivers on that front, presenting multiple scenes of the man being kicked, punched, thrown, kneed and slapped across the chops. But whilst many Kevin James haters will get a kick out of watching those moments, they’ll no doubt be unsatisfied by the rest of the movie, which fails to deliver much in terms of actual laughs.
James plays Scott Voss, a lazy and uninterested high-school biology teacher who takes part in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in a bid to raise the money to save the job of the school’s inspiring and loveable music teacher (played by the ever charming and all-round nice guy Henry Winkler). Cue multiple scenes of James getting the s**t kicked out of him.
The main problem with HERE COMES THE BOOM lies not in James (who is at least watchable and likeable as Voss) but in the film’s lack of laugh out loud moments. It’s by no means boring, and for the most part is quite entertaining. But crucially, it fails to deliver any A-grade funny material. Or for that matter any kind of grade material. There’s nothing to laugh at (or at least nothing that made this reviewer laugh). It’s odd for a comedy to be watchable in any way when it fails to fulfill its promise of making you laugh. Maybe it’s due to the reasonable screen presence of the cast that keeps things from getting dull, but there’s no denying that BOOM isn’t a laugh-a-minute romp.
Fans of UFC will love the cameos and will also no doubt appreciate the sheer love for the sport that the film displays across almost every frame. But none-fans will perhaps find the lack of comedy a major let down. Even if Kevin James does get punched in the face a lot.
HERE COMES THE BOOM is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now and distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
