Kings of Summer brought a smile to my face a few times, but I was expecting more and when I left the theater feeling as though it could have been much better.
The first half of the movie was good. The setup was done well, the interaction with the families and friends was entertaining, but then once the boys moved into the forest, the film drags until everyone is reunited in the hospital.
One of the issues with the film was buying into the notion that the boys managed to build the house depicted, in a matter of a week or two. The house should have been a shack at best, instead of a two story, multi-room structure, framed by 4x4 beams, partial sheet metal and plywood siding and roof, furniture inside and out, AND a slide staircase! No one is buying that. For as 'remote' a setting as this is supposed to be, we are expected to believe that these three kids somehow hand-carried several tons worth of metal and wood through a dense forest, not to mention furniture, and then threw it all together seemingly overnight? If it was intended to be something we could believe in, have the kids buy and set up a three room tent and then add a lean-to onto it–that I would have accepted. Once the guys moved in, the movie really had nowhere else to go and we are left waiting, and waiting, and waiting for something to happen, other than where the chickens come from and dancing next to a pipe. When the end finally rolls around, the visual display is more like a couple of bottle rockets popping off in the distance, instead of a grand 4th of July fireworks extravaganza.
I also wish movies these days would give the audience a little more credit, and not make films expecting that we don't know much, or will pass over things without raising our eyebrows. Case in point is realism. I already touched on the aspects of the house being believable, but I have a few others. Can someone nudge a director and let them know that a little make-up can easily cover up pierced ear lobes on males! If you are going to show close-ups of males, and you don't want us buying that the character (Frank in this instance, played by Nick Offerman)wears earrings, then for crying out loud throw a little make-up on Nick's ear lobes so we don't see the holes! Studios go to lengths to hide all sorts of things on actors, like tan-lines of wedding rings and wristwatches, and to cover over tattoos, scars and hairlines, etc.–why not extend that to piercings? If you also want us accepting that the snake is a poisonous copperhead, then by all means pay a little extra and get a hot-snake (poisonous snake) handler on location and film a real copperhead–not a regular ol' bull snake (which is not poisonous)!
The six stars I give this film are for the scenes with the parents of the boys, and the few minutes afforded to the romance trends between the teenagers, but the rest of it (second half) was too humdrum to hold my interest.
