Is This Netflix Movie the Next ‘Super Villain’?

It’s understandable, and even thematically fitting, that the new Netflix teen comedy Incoming looks up to Super bad like a younger brother who idolizes his cool older siblings. Super bad may not be about the cool kids, but as far as one-night-only teen comedies go, it’s easily the funniest and best-made we’ve seen this century – something any comedy filmmaker can enjoy. So if Incoming it’s hard to stomach much ill will. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: the film’s aspirations earn it a credit line it may not deserve.

Reversing the position of Super bad‘s almost graduated seniors, Incoming revolves around four insecure friends just starting their freshman year of high school. The rest of the characters are pretty easy to pin down: Benj (Mason Thames) is the sweetly nerdy Michael Cera-type who has a long-standing crush on Bailey (Isabella Ferreira), his senior sister’s best friend; Danah (Bardia Seiri) is Jonah Hill’s wannabe wild man, whose older brother throws a high school kickoff rager where he and Benj hope to get lucky and reaffirm their high school cool; and Eddie (Ramon Reed) and Connor (Raphael Alejandro) share the McLovin-esque side adventure, as two nerdy guys who miss out on the party and instead drive around all night. (Connor even gets a nickname right away, albeit a less triumphant one, through no choice.)

These are not the only storylines that run through the story Incomingthat writers-directors Dave and John Chernin sometimes put in a Can’t wait-style ensemble. Bobby Cannavale is present as a cool but lonely science teacher who ends up partying with his students, essentially creating a longer version of the Saturday Night Live “Party Song” video from a few years ago. Eddie and Connor are driving around with a drunken Katrina (Loren Gray), the school’s most popular online influencer; Benj’s sister Alyssa (Ali Gallo) is coming to terms with her own insecurities; many people are learning, or half-learning, to be themselves, instead of trying to be cool.

Are these running gags or full-fledged subplots? It’s hard to say. Some are pretty funny, and almost none are outright flops, but nothing really kills either. The Chernins, veterans of It’s always sunny in Philadelphiaclearly trying to operate in the anything-goes mode of outrageous R-rated comedy, full of profane one-liners and the sweetly reckless behavior of youth — only here much of the worst behavior is haphazardly staged, conveniently omitted, or anonymized into montages of characters we don’t actually know. It’s fine that Incoming lacks the bullying or disgusting jokes that make so many “classic” teen comedies much less worth rewatching than Super badUnfortunately, crucial comedic timing is also lacking, causing the film to repeatedly fall flat, even as the film is barely 80 minutes in before the credits roll.

The awkwardness starts with the dialogues, which often sound canned rather than improvised. (Although Super bad was written more tightly than it seemed, much of it sounded (so exciting it seems like it was pitched straight from the minds of the protagonists.)

It’s fair to say that none of these actors are as seasoned as a young Cera or Hill; the bigger problem is that they’re unsupported by the Chernins’ direction. Comic reversals, like a conflict that ping-pongs between impending combat and camaraderie, are mistimed and step on jokes. Payoffs range from predictable to nonexistent to oddly punishing; the film’s attempts at large-scale slapstick aren’t calibrated for visual gag hilarity, and characters suffer injuries that feel oddly real, even if they exist in a cartoonish world. The film often feels as if it’s second-guessing itself, unsure whether to inflict merciless humiliations on its characters or reward them for being essentially nice people.

In all the commotion, the film fails to capture its most compelling element: Benj’s nascent suspicion that Bailey might like him, complicated (but not quite enough) by his sister’s mean-girl hostility. Thames and Ferreira aren’t exactly hilarious in their roles, but they do convey the nervous excitement of young love, and their final moment together has an unexpected romantic-comedy feel. That final flash of sour sweetness also serves as a moment of clarity, revealing just how uninterested Incoming has been in taking its own advice about chilling out and being yourself. Whatever the authentic identity of this film might have been, it doesn’t seem like an outrageous party movie is the way to go.