"Wet Hot American Summer": Gross Kissing, a Gay Wedding, and Time Passages

I didn't see the 2001 movie Wet Hot American Summer.  I assumed from the trailers that it was all about girls in bikinis.

Besides, it was a bomb -- it made $295,000 on a budget of $5,000,000. 

And reviewers hated it:

 Roger Ebert wrote a parody poem instead of a review.

Stacie Hougland said "it's not only unfunny, it's downright repulsive."

Stephen Hunter: "This is supposed to be funny?  It was so depressing I started to cry."

But recently I heard that it had a gay couple in it, plus it starred several gay and gay-friendly actors, so I plugged it in on Netflix.

It's the morning of the last day of camp at Camp Firewood, Maine, in the summer of 1981, and all of the boy campers are squirming around in bed with the   girl campers. Gross!

Then singularly ugly, 30-something teenage counselors all get together for their last morning briefing. Andy (Paul Rudd, top photo) is licking his girlfriend's uvula (I'm not kidding.  Never in my life have I seen such gross kissing).

They go out to various activities that could not possibly fit into a single day.

Andy is so busy kissing a girl that he lets one of the campers drown. Later he lets one of the campers fall off water skiis and drown.

Camp director Beth (Janine Garofalo) falls for Henry (David Hyde Pierce), an associate professor of astrophysics who is coming up for tenure (associate professors have tenure!  Anybody hear of fact checking?).  So she and some other counselors drive into town to research astrophysics to impress him. While there, they smoke pot, buy cocaine, shoot up heroin, and mug a woman.  But they're back by 11:00.

Henry teaches several science lessons to the campers, and he and Beth become a committed couple.

Coop (31-year old Michael Showalter, left) unsuccessfully tries to woo Kate (Marguerite Moreau) away from Andy, who doesn't like her anyway.

The virgin Victor (33-year old Ken Marino) is scheduled to hook up with  Abby (who also kisses in that disgusting uvula-licking fashion), but he is forced to take some boys rafting on a river a two hour drive away.

He sneaks away and tries to drive back to the camp, but crashes the van, so he runs.

At least 100 miles.

Then he discovers that the boys are trapped on a raft heading for the falls, so he runs back to rescue them.

At least 100 miles

But they all return safely (and dry)  in time for the evening talent show.

McKinley (30-year old Michael Ian Black) doesn't like kissing girls or watching girls skinny-dip.  His two buds wonder why.

We find out when he sneaks off to the supply shed to have sex with Ben (25-year old Bradley Cooper).  (A brief kiss and  a shot of their legs while they're having anal sex).

Next the buds see them getting married, with Beth  officiating.  Wait -- how did they....and  isn't Beth in town, shooting up heroin?

I'm not sure if it's a homophobic scene or not.  Beth's over-the-top teary-eyed gushing sounds insincere, like she is making fun of McKinley and Ben.

"McKinley's a fag!"  The buds exclaim.  "What are we going to do?"

Why is he hanging out with homophobes, anyway?

Or are they homophobes? They show up at dinner with a wedding gift, a chaise lounge in a gigantic crate.  Wait -- did they drive into town?  How...

That's the end of the McKinley plotline,but we see him doing other things, like forcing a kid who hasn't bathed in two months to take a shower, and sitting in the audience at the talent show.  I don't know who Ben is.

For other characters, time seems to stand still.

Gail (Molly Shannon) spends the entire day in the arts and crafts cabin, crying over her ex-husband and being counseled by her campers.

Except for a brief scene of uvula-licking, Gary (AD Miles, left) spends the entire day in the kitchen, where head chef Gene (Christopher Meloni) says things that sound sexual, then backtracks:  "The juice packets are in the store room, next to my dick cream.  I didn't say dick cream, I said stick team.  They're next to the stick team's snacks."

Aside from the uvula-licking scenes, the heroin/mugging scene, and some queasy anti-Semitic bits, the movie is not particularly disgusting.  But actors are so old that they are not at all believable teenagers, and the time-compression and time-dilation are bizarre.  I spend the entire 90 minutes yelling at the screen: "Wait...that's impossible.  They couldn't have gotten that done.  How did they end up together so fast,,.  Is Gail still crying?  But..."

I'll give it a D just for the crazy pacing.

Netflix has somehow come up with two series, a prequel (same actors 20 years later, still playing teenagers) and a sequel (set 10 years later, so 1991).