Average customer rating:
- Worth Seeing
- A Big Waste of Time
- If went to summer camp you'll love this
- Total disappointment!!
- Was expecting much more
|
Happy Campers (Ws Sub)
Starring:
Brad Renfro ,
Dominique Swain ,
Keram Malicki-Sánchez ,
Emily Bergl , and
Jordan Bridges
Director:
Daniel Waters
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
 General
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Bugajski, Monica
| ( B )
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Renfro, Brad
| ( R )
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Stormare, Peter
| ( S )
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Swain, Dominique
| ( S )
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ASIN: B000067J13
Release Date: 2002-06-18 |
Amazon.com
Happy Campers vacillates from being a ridiculous parody of summer-camp life to being a genuine examination of adolescence. Camp counselors Brad Renfro (Apt Pupil, The Client) and Dominique Swain (Face/Off, Lolita) have very different approaches (she's super-perky, he's a moody rebel), but find themselves irresistibly attracted to each other as the camp falls into chaos over the course of the summer. What keeps this basic plot from being completely cheesy is a basic honesty about youth--Happy Campers doesn't shy away from the cruelty, sexual frustration, and general awkwardness of being a teen. Despite its inconsistencies of tone, the movie is a more compelling portrait of adolescence than any John Hughes movie, and the attractive, likable cast--also featuring James King (Pearl Harbor) and Emily Bergl (The Rage: Carrie 2)--will keep you engaged. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
Worth Seeing.......2006-05-29
I liked this movie. I lose interest in almost all movies half-way through, but this one kept me watching. The cinematography is excellent; the colors and lighting are nice to look at. The characters are attractive, interesting and funny. It's not 'Meatballs,' and it's not 'Lolita,' or even a combination of the two. It's a unique film.
A Big Waste of Time.......2005-10-12
"Happy Campers" is a useful movie only because it prompts basic questions about its writer/director Daniel Waters and his breakout film "Heathers" (which he wrote but did not direct). Did he use up all his good stuff writing the Heathers screenplay and have nothing left for "Happy Campers? Did he lose most of his active brain cells shortly after making Heathers (an event that would account for both the 'Hudson Hawk"and the "Happy Campers" screenplays)? Was Heathers just a happy accident? Or is Heathers so open-ended that critics and viewers attributed significance to a very ordinary movie. All these explanations are possible either jointly or collectively.
For "Happy Campers" Waters tries to weave "Breakfast Club" themes into a "Meatballs" story. So you get tedious voice-over suggestions about how the artificial bounds of the high school hierarchy can sometimes be bridged by spending a couple months together as summer camp counselors. Like each detention server in "The Breakfast Club", each counselor is an easily identified stereotype. And over the course of camp each is supposed to go through changes, at least that appears to be the premise.
Unfortunately the script has difficulty communicating this process despite an unprecedented amount of voice-over narration. All seven of the main characters get some voice-over time, a device that is very confusing and pretty much destroys any possibility of the movie having any unified theme.
Dominique Swain has the biggest part as Wendy, the terminally peppy cheerleader type (appropriately pictured in a cheerleader outfit on the DVD). Swain is the only good thing about the movie, it is an over-the-top caricature that plays to her acting strengths. This is the type of role Swain should be playing, one that requires self-parody rather than subtlety. She also benefits by relative comparison to James (Jaime) King-whose acting skills are in the Kathy Ireland mold, as well as from being paired with the physically miscast Brad Renfro-who manages to drain all energy from each scene in which he appears. The other four counselors have a fair about of screen time and some lame misadventures but nothing particularly memorable.
Some effort is made to introduce the actual summer campers to the story but none of it even remotely works. "Meatballs" was able to get away with shallow character development because it was basically just a Bill Murray vehicle. Although Swain might have been able to carry the whole thing like Murray the script does not allow this and things never really get going in "Happy Campers".
Waters apparently believed that audiences would react positively to a movie where 90% of the comedy involved sexual references that most preteens would consider moronic. Hey Daniel, did you pay someone to write that Heathers" screenplay for you.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
If went to summer camp you'll love this.......2005-08-15
What I mean to say is that if you've done the camp thing before and are of a propper age, you'll understand and like this movie. Some of the humor in this is not meant for the young on's. Ive been going to summer camp since I was 7 and have since worked at that camp. I'm 11 years older (I'm 18 now) and wiser; I know the dark sexually drived stuff on the part of the staffers, about how at night u get with your fellow staffers and talk about the opposite sex, sex, and sexuality in general. That's exactly what this movie is with its seven 19yr old staff members, each with their first year of college and extreme persona behind them. The staff does try to hide the darker things (well, no, that's not exactly true) infact, i like the movie so much because all the campers knew what was going on with staff (better than the staff at times) and all real summer campers know to evesdrop on the cool older staff. The staffers in the movie find the naitivity around them charming and indulge their campers' curiosities and questions; either that or they have no control over their emotional outbursts. It actually is a sweet, well-acted, dark comedy. About summer love (gag me with a spoon), fate (double gag me) but mainly about the relationships between staffers, campers, and how the two groups mingle. Anyway, part of it is about first love but it is not mushy romance, guys and girls alike will enjoy this, and while it wont be the camp you went to, u recognize the components of the movie that relate to your camp. and it's just hysterical. The movie IS camp condensed into an hour and a half with different aesthetics. So, yeah, i love this movie, me and my camp buddies get a kick out of it, i hope this helps
Oh, if you're a fan of Heathers (made by the same guy) like me then you wont be disapointed with this, unless u liked all the suicides in Heathers and find them a necessity for a film to be enjoyable
Total disappointment!!.......2005-06-21
Blech! I really like all the young actors that were in this movie and expected it to be really funny and cute. WRONG! It was a bizarre combination of shock tactics trying to show how edgey they all were. The only redeeming actor was Justin Long. The rest of the movie was a waste of brain cells.
Was expecting much more.......2005-01-02
I enjoy watching teen movies because I'm ever so curious about how the director sees this particular age group and the misconceptions present in his view as much as in the teens' view of things.
This movie is unlike most teen "romantic comedies" I've seen, and not necessarily in a good way. First of all, the main characters are unlikeable and don't represent actual categories of people in real life:
We have the good looking rebel who's actually not so rebellious after all but then gets back to his old ways (stupid twist if you ask me), the nerd who can't get any (they picked the worst possible guy to play the nerd; he's actually pretty good looking and a funny guy...), the nerdy girl who hasn't grown up yet (ends up hooking up with the rebel but they break up), the gay guy (I have no idea what his role in this movie was), the aggressive victim of child abuse (...), the freaky nympho with a tint of lesbian (what the hell were you thinking Daniel Waters?) and finally the rebel's childhood best friend who falls in love with him and is rejected (the film focuses about 5 minutes of its total 88 on this character... I don't know why she's even here, she has no obvious role and her situation doesn't reflect at all in the real world).
Next up, I think the director is sexually obsessed or something. Ok, I know sex is an important part of a teenager's life but this movie is about lame 13 year old girls aching for sex and even lamer 19 year olds who have nothing else better to do. If I wanted to see hormonal imbalance, I would go watch Discovery Channel. There are more important things in life than sex, and this "masterpiece" definitely doesn't illustrate them. The characters' thoughts and actions are limited to the camp itself and the director focuses too much on useless stuff and tries to create stereotypes, but fails miserably. Most teen movies have a moral side to them, they teach the audience certain values, unlike "Happy Campers". This movie only taught me that it's so cool to be obsessed about sex, it's cool for 12 year old girls to think they're oh-so-hot women, that only the absolute best looking guys hook up (not true in the real world) and more [...]. Also the director makes completely ridiculous situations seem normal, such as the camp leader getting hit by lightning and then acting completely weird, the counsellors buying 47203 boxes of condoms (there's only so much sex you can have in 40 days...), the whole "Don't-touch-me Todd" thing, and so on and so forth.
This movie isn't worth the $2 I paid to rent it. Those who think this is better than the American Pie series should go out more. American Pie was a work of art, this is a piece of [...].
Product Description
Hit the trail with Miss Shirley and Friends to learn about the great outdoors with this step-by-step guide to safe hiking. Miss Shirley encourages children to explore nature, discover wildlife, and protect the environment. Valuable outdoor-survival skills and safety tips that could help a lost child are presented in a fun and memorable way. The DVD comes with a Guide Book that list the preparation steps before hiking, shows uses for a bandanna, has lyrics of the original theme song, recipes, and the Naturalist Promise.
Customer Reviews:
c'est genre beautiful!.......2007-09-03
guy a. lepage is a great nerd in ths hilarious movie! so you probably wont get all the little jokes if you dont understand french(from quebec)its still a movie you should see(aspecialy with your drunk,or stoned, buddies). see it and laugh, or else!!!
Amazon.com
Happy Campers vacillates from being a ridiculous parody of summer-camp life to being a genuine examination of adolescence. Camp counselors Brad Renfro (Apt Pupil, The Client) and Dominique Swain (Face/Off, Lolita) have very different approaches (she's super-perky, he's a moody rebel), but find themselves irresistibly attracted to each other as the camp falls into chaos over the course of the summer. What keeps this basic plot from being completely cheesy is a basic honesty about youth--Happy Campers doesn't shy away from the cruelty, sexual frustration, and general awkwardness of being a teen. Despite its inconsistencies of tone, the movie is a more compelling portrait of adolescence than any John Hughes movie, and the attractive, likable cast--also featuring James King (Pearl Harbor) and Emily Bergl (The Rage: Carrie 2)--will keep you engaged. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
Worth Seeing.......2006-05-29
I liked this movie. I lose interest in almost all movies half-way through, but this one kept me watching. The cinematography is excellent; the colors and lighting are nice to look at. The characters are attractive, interesting and funny. It's not 'Meatballs,' and it's not 'Lolita,' or even a combination of the two. It's a unique film.
A Big Waste of Time.......2005-10-12
"Happy Campers" is a useful movie only because it prompts basic questions about its writer/director Daniel Waters and his breakout film "Heathers" (which he wrote but did not direct). Did he use up all his good stuff writing the Heathers screenplay and have nothing left for "Happy Campers? Did he lose most of his active brain cells shortly after making Heathers (an event that would account for both the 'Hudson Hawk"and the "Happy Campers" screenplays)? Was Heathers just a happy accident? Or is Heathers so open-ended that critics and viewers attributed significance to a very ordinary movie. All these explanations are possible either jointly or collectively.
For "Happy Campers" Waters tries to weave "Breakfast Club" themes into a "Meatballs" story. So you get tedious voice-over suggestions about how the artificial bounds of the high school hierarchy can sometimes be bridged by spending a couple months together as summer camp counselors. Like each detention server in "The Breakfast Club", each counselor is an easily identified stereotype. And over the course of camp each is supposed to go through changes, at least that appears to be the premise.
Unfortunately the script has difficulty communicating this process despite an unprecedented amount of voice-over narration. All seven of the main characters get some voice-over time, a device that is very confusing and pretty much destroys any possibility of the movie having any unified theme.
Dominique Swain has the biggest part as Wendy, the terminally peppy cheerleader type (appropriately pictured in a cheerleader outfit on the DVD). Swain is the only good thing about the movie, it is an over-the-top caricature that plays to her acting strengths. This is the type of role Swain should be playing, one that requires self-parody rather than subtlety. She also benefits by relative comparison to James (Jaime) King-whose acting skills are in the Kathy Ireland mold, as well as from being paired with the physically miscast Brad Renfro-who manages to drain all energy from each scene in which he appears. The other four counselors have a fair about of screen time and some lame misadventures but nothing particularly memorable.
Some effort is made to introduce the actual summer campers to the story but none of it even remotely works. "Meatballs" was able to get away with shallow character development because it was basically just a Bill Murray vehicle. Although Swain might have been able to carry the whole thing like Murray the script does not allow this and things never really get going in "Happy Campers".
Waters apparently believed that audiences would react positively to a movie where 90% of the comedy involved sexual references that most preteens would consider moronic. Hey Daniel, did you pay someone to write that Heathers" screenplay for you.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
If went to summer camp you'll love this.......2005-08-15
What I mean to say is that if you've done the camp thing before and are of a propper age, you'll understand and like this movie. Some of the humor in this is not meant for the young on's. Ive been going to summer camp since I was 7 and have since worked at that camp. I'm 11 years older (I'm 18 now) and wiser; I know the dark sexually drived stuff on the part of the staffers, about how at night u get with your fellow staffers and talk about the opposite sex, sex, and sexuality in general. That's exactly what this movie is with its seven 19yr old staff members, each with their first year of college and extreme persona behind them. The staff does try to hide the darker things (well, no, that's not exactly true) infact, i like the movie so much because all the campers knew what was going on with staff (better than the staff at times) and all real summer campers know to evesdrop on the cool older staff. The staffers in the movie find the naitivity around them charming and indulge their campers' curiosities and questions; either that or they have no control over their emotional outbursts. It actually is a sweet, well-acted, dark comedy. About summer love (gag me with a spoon), fate (double gag me) but mainly about the relationships between staffers, campers, and how the two groups mingle. Anyway, part of it is about first love but it is not mushy romance, guys and girls alike will enjoy this, and while it wont be the camp you went to, u recognize the components of the movie that relate to your camp. and it's just hysterical. The movie IS camp condensed into an hour and a half with different aesthetics. So, yeah, i love this movie, me and my camp buddies get a kick out of it, i hope this helps
Oh, if you're a fan of Heathers (made by the same guy) like me then you wont be disapointed with this, unless u liked all the suicides in Heathers and find them a necessity for a film to be enjoyable
Total disappointment!!.......2005-06-21
Blech! I really like all the young actors that were in this movie and expected it to be really funny and cute. WRONG! It was a bizarre combination of shock tactics trying to show how edgey they all were. The only redeeming actor was Justin Long. The rest of the movie was a waste of brain cells.
Was expecting much more.......2005-01-02
I enjoy watching teen movies because I'm ever so curious about how the director sees this particular age group and the misconceptions present in his view as much as in the teens' view of things.
This movie is unlike most teen "romantic comedies" I've seen, and not necessarily in a good way. First of all, the main characters are unlikeable and don't represent actual categories of people in real life:
We have the good looking rebel who's actually not so rebellious after all but then gets back to his old ways (stupid twist if you ask me), the nerd who can't get any (they picked the worst possible guy to play the nerd; he's actually pretty good looking and a funny guy...), the nerdy girl who hasn't grown up yet (ends up hooking up with the rebel but they break up), the gay guy (I have no idea what his role in this movie was), the aggressive victim of child abuse (...), the freaky nympho with a tint of lesbian (what the hell were you thinking Daniel Waters?) and finally the rebel's childhood best friend who falls in love with him and is rejected (the film focuses about 5 minutes of its total 88 on this character... I don't know why she's even here, she has no obvious role and her situation doesn't reflect at all in the real world).
Next up, I think the director is sexually obsessed or something. Ok, I know sex is an important part of a teenager's life but this movie is about lame 13 year old girls aching for sex and even lamer 19 year olds who have nothing else better to do. If I wanted to see hormonal imbalance, I would go watch Discovery Channel. There are more important things in life than sex, and this "masterpiece" definitely doesn't illustrate them. The characters' thoughts and actions are limited to the camp itself and the director focuses too much on useless stuff and tries to create stereotypes, but fails miserably. Most teen movies have a moral side to them, they teach the audience certain values, unlike "Happy Campers". This movie only taught me that it's so cool to be obsessed about sex, it's cool for 12 year old girls to think they're oh-so-hot women, that only the absolute best looking guys hook up (not true in the real world) and more [...]. Also the director makes completely ridiculous situations seem normal, such as the camp leader getting hit by lightning and then acting completely weird, the counsellors buying 47203 boxes of condoms (there's only so much sex you can have in 40 days...), the whole "Don't-touch-me Todd" thing, and so on and so forth.
This movie isn't worth the $2 I paid to rent it. Those who think this is better than the American Pie series should go out more. American Pie was a work of art, this is a piece of [...].
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