Posted in: Movies, Review, Review | Tagged: animation, Barbarian, comedy, Feature Film, mars, The Whitest Kids U'Know, weapons, Zach Clegger

Mars: The Whitest Kids U'Know Movie Revels in Gleeful Stupidity

Mars might be the swansong of comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know, a gleefully stupid satirical poke at topics currently in the air

Mars is a gleefully stupid animated comedy that touches on current issues and feels like an amiable throwback to early to mid-2000s comedy, raining chaos on a topic currently in the zeitgeist: techbro billionaires' obsession with going to Mars. It's an on-brand animated comedy from comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know, and is the last project The Whitest Kids U'Know will create with late troupe leader, Trevor Moore, and may or may not be the group's swansong.

Kyle is a nebbish dentist in a slump – he's about to marry his near-psychotic girlfriend, but he's too scared of breaking up. So what does a conflict-avoiding manchild do? Put his name in the lottery for a slot to go to Mars with a handful of fellow totally unprepared and untrained civilians in a publicity-grabbing stunt by a too-friendly tech billionaire. Before he knows it, Kyle is stuck on Mars with a contemptuous millennial schoolteacher, a repressed religious zealot, a mentally unstable woman rescued from her parents' basement, and his girlfriend, who was added to their expedition in a ratings-grabbing surprise for the TV audience on Earth. Not only that, they're soon trapped on Mars with their oxygen dwindling and imminent death, as you do. Kyle tries to rally everyone to work together to get back to Earth while his depraved and conspiracy-obsessed best friend, Cooter, digs into the truth behind the Mars expedition. That's almost a Hollywood blockbuster movie, only done in the most deliberately stooopid way possible to wring as many borderline mean-spirited laughs as possible. After all, who doesn't want to see a tech billionaire's head explode?

Mars displays the kind of comedy tradition The Whitest Kids U'Know are part of: smart people making the most stupid and surreal jokes possible. It's a tradition that Monty Python showed could be taken to the extreme that Saturday Night Live does in a softer way. Not so The Whitest Kids U'Know, who are utterly gleeful about death, mutilation, and gore while scoring deliberately cheap satirical points. That's their whole brand. Member Zach Cregger has taken to the scripts for his sleeper hits Barbarian and Weapons. There's a boldness to the way the story jumps between different characters and timelines to reveal twists and, in this case, add even more absurd gags. It shows Cregger's approach to storytelling was always part of The Whitest Kids U'Know's vibe, taken to a more "realistic" live action setting, and it works.

MediaOCD will release the Blu-Ray of Mars by The Whitest Kids U' Know on March 10th with over 9 hours of extras. If you miss one of the screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse, you can access Mars via the North American platform Darkroom.

Mars

---

Review by Adi Tantimedh

---

7.5/10

Mars is an on-brand animated feature film that may be the swansong of comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U'Know as they follow the tradition of smart people making the most absurd and stupid jokes imaginable, in this case a jab at tech billionaires' obsession with going to Mars, and the sheer idiocy of picking the least competent and qualified people to go with. Messy hilarity ensues, which is the point of the whole thing.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!