Wackness

You know how in a movie there’s a flashback? And in the flashback the colors are all faded and everything’s really blown-out and over-exposed? Now imagine a whole movie filmed like that: in “flashback cam.” Once again, like Hancock, the masturbatory cinematography undermines the entire story. Too, Wackness tries so hard to be cool by injecting every band and every pop-culture reference from 1994 to remind us that we’re in a flashback movie. It’s eye-rollingly bad. It’s a shame because the lead, formerly tubby child actor Josh Peck, at times believes he’s in a better movie than he really is. He’s actually able to be meaningful at times, in spite of the self-indulgent screenwriter, director, and cinematographer. Wackness is a tragedy on an epic scale, because in different hands, it might have been interesting.