Pizza Movie satisfies your stoner movie munchies

The Spool / Movies

The collaboration between Hulu and the duo from BriTANicK yields a predictable but still tasty new strain for the genre.

By: Tim Stevens

7.2

Reviewing a stoner film when you aren’t one isn’t always an easy prospect. It’s difficult to enjoy a culture when you aren’t part of it. At least that’s how I typically explain my lack of appreciation for Half Baked, save for that one scene. But I’m not a total square, I promise. I liked the Harold & Kumar movies, for instance. Just something to keep in mind when reading this review of Pizza Movie.

Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) are freshman year roommates and best friends. To the campus at large, though, they’re about as popular as you’d expect a guy named Montgomery and a former mascot who got the entire football team suspended would be. After another round of humiliation that ends with the theft of their liquor in a particularly cruel turn, they’re desperate for some way to distract themselves. Especially Jack. And lo, the drug gods do deliver.

Pizza Movie (<a href= — Count on Sarah Sherman to pull off a bonnet. (Disney/Brett Roedel)

Falling from the sky—or the drop ceiling if you reject poetic license—is a tin of drugs apparently concocted by one of the previous denizens of their room, Frankie (Sarah Sherman). In too much of a hurry to watch the full YouTube video about the pills, they each take one. It is only later that they learn there are some gnarly side effects, including, apparently, total madness. The only way to prevent that final one? Pizza.

To once again invoke Harold & Kumar, the quest for that perfect bite when high isn’t exactly new territory. And given that Jack and Montgomery only have to traverse a couple of dorm floors to reach the pizza robot in their lobby, not the state of New Jersey, it hardly feels like much of a challenge. But those symptoms—highlighted by scenes that recall the drug progression scenes from 21 Jump Street—are a bear. Plus, all those classmates can’t wait to bully them. If they don’t get our heroes, perhaps the RAs led by Blake (Jack Martin) might. They’ve decided tonight is the night they seize power, and they have no use for Jack and Montgomery’s shenanigans. Oh, and then there’s their former friend Lizzy (Lulu Wilson), who ditched them for the popular kids for the psychological element.

As befitting writer-director Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher’s sketch origins, Pizza Movie casts a wide humor net. As a result, it’s unlikely every joke will hit. You might love Daniel Radcliffe voicing a vengeful butterfly, Lysander Featherhelm, but loathe the flatulence-heavy bullying in the first. Or, perhaps, you’ll dig incompetent RA Sydney’s (Caleb Hearon) enjoyment of…cosplaying the Grinch but find the pizza delivery robot’s trials a bit of a snooze. But that by blanketing the place in gags and goofs, it is unlikely the movie goes too long without at least brushing up against your funny bone.

Performances certainly help. Matarazzo taps into his theatre roots in a way he hasn’t yet been able to with his on-screen career. While Honor Society did suggest there was a career path after Stranger Things, this feels like a much louder confirmation. Giambrone has the quieter part, which sometimes finds him eclipsed in the first act. However, as the movie gets stranger, he moves to the forefront. Matarazzo’s Jack is the catalyst, but Giambrone has the bigger arc. The MVP, though, goes to Wilson. Her Lizzy isn’t as big as Jack or as sweet and reserved as Montgomery, but that lack of excess leaves her to hit a lot of notes all at once.

Hearon doesn’t steal the show as he did in Sweethearts, but he remains a reliable supporting player who can land a punchline. On the supporting side, Martin’s autocratic RA has the strongest showing. His would-be tinpot dictator is the right kind of over-the-top, a villain who can cut through the hallucinations and silliness to grab the spotlight. Peyton Elizabeth Lee, on the other hand, is a bit stranded as the love interest, Ashley. In her one twist, her band works in a genre one would never guess. Where the plot takes her is a nice bit of cliché rejection as well, but it largely plays out outside her. She’s affected by it but had no hand in making it happen.

Similarly, as a fan, I was disappointed with the use, or lack thereof, really, of the TikTok troupe behind American High Shorts. I’m glad they’re getting big-screen work, but there’s not much space for them to demonstrate their talents. Next time, Pete Flack!

Visually, the film has an appealing ramshackle appearance, a well-deployed bit of form following function. It offers some visual treats—an animated squid, a fight sequence that flips between an incredible martial artist and our hapless trio—but the bland trappings of typical dorm life frequently puncture them. It may sound like a criticism, but it works for the movie. The disparity gives us glimpses of how our stoned heroes see the world in an adventurous, grandiose scope before showing us the all-too-mundane reality.

Where the film can’t sell itself is in the late second-act “and now our heroes are in a fight” obstacle and their act of reconciliation. Pizza Movie can’t get us into their relationship enough to make their separation hurt, and thus their reaffirmation of friendship feels equally shrugworthy. Of course, how many people come to stoner films for emotional stakes? Pizza Movie isn’t a five-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant. It’s that plate of nachos, covered in a neon orange cheese. In the right mood, under the right influences, it hits just right.

Pizza Movie is on a quest for the perfect slice on Hulu now.