User Reviews

I needed to leave a review since the only one up so far was a super negative gay-bashing.

Kaboom is the best Gregg Araki movie I have seen to date. Smiley Face was charming, and Mysterious Skins was just perverted (Mino from Romania should watch that one, he'd love it). It is super stylized in the coolest way, and the presentation is very clean. This movie just has a glossy feel to it that is very impressive. Aside from the color and glitter, the story is very engaging and holds on to you. It is a funny movie, there are scenes that will make you laugh, and some scenes that will give you goosebumps. It is also very eerie at times, the stylistic devices implemented to be chilling are indeed so, and at times it is chilling in a sort of deeper X-Filesy kind of way. Unfortunately, my criticism is that the conclusion of the film is all rushed exposition and not very rewarding at that after the fantastic build up beforehand.

The film deals with sexuality in a very lighthearted way. I find Araki's treatment of sexual taboo's to be refreshing and comical. Not for the ultra-conservative or homophobic crowd.

Since other reviewers of Kaboom have mentioned Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Polanski, Hitchcock, and Craven I might point out that the character, Smith is introduced as film student who is actually studying "Un Chien Andalou" by those naughty twenty-somethings Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Our wiki friends inform us that "The film has no plot in the conventional sense of the word. The chronology of the film is disjointed..... It uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes." Sound familiar? Chien was essentially a student film but one might say that it has had some staying power.

I liked Kaboom but it was certainly a bit silly, especially toward the end. About as silly as a lobster telephone. And if characters were continually waking out of dreams (and being interrupted during "spanking" sessions), perhaps that was a hint to the viewer about where the film was coming from.....

Gregg Araki's breakthrough film, 1992's THE LIVING END, was a gay THELMA & LOUISE in the age of AIDS, very cutting edge, and I thought he'd go much further than he did but, then again, big things were also predicted for John Dahl (RED ROCK WEST, THE LAST SEDUCTION) at the time. Oh, well. Anyway, Araki's been on the indie scene ever since and KABOOM takes his "apocalyptic teen angst" series (TOTALLY F***ED UP, THE DOOM GENERATION, NOWHERE, MYSTERIOUS SKIN) on a psychedelic roller coaster ride to a trippy -and inevitable- eve of destruction. It's a stylish (with vivid colors you can eat with a spoon), funny, sexy, college-set CLUELESS-on-acid that morphs into a cross between Sergio Martino's ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK and THE WIZARD OF OZ after a horny, existentialistic film student begins to realize he may be at the center of a global conspiracy with cataclysmic consequences. Fairly indescribable, free-wheeling sci-fi fun that'll leave you with a WTF? feeling. I liked it.

That's how 'Kaboom' is billed on the DVD. I watched it, premiered on Film 4 last night.

Initially I rather liked it, the striking design, the casual attitudes to almost everything and the dialogue. Especially the catty one-liners. I'm not familiar with this director and on the strength of this one movie, I'm not in a particular hurry to explore further, however.

I realise that it's intended to be a surreal cult film and where it falls to pieces is where it starts to mess with your head, as it's just non-sensical and frankly, silly. I also realise that I'm not in the probable intended audience, age-wise. People running around in pig- headed masks just don't grab me, I'm afraid.

The liberal, mixed sex scenes were both interesting and fun and the attitude that good sex is just that, refreshing. Most of the young cast play their parts well, especially Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett and Juno Temple. I did watch it all and there were many good points and I enjoyed much of it, but ultimately, it's just too way out there.

When people start talking about a directors previous films as a supporting material for his current one, it's not a good sign. This film is poorly plotted and paced. The actors put in committed performances but the script is laughable. Never as edgy as it seems to think it is. The actors lines fall like lead balloons from their lips.

I wasn't sure if Kaboom was intentionally aiming for so-bad-its-good fare, but it missed the mark on that score.

I've seen this film called 'Donnie Darko meets Rules of Engagement'; in reality if it was just a little worse, it could have been a Sci-fi Showgirls - but instead of being truly bad, it's merely mediocre.

Some great performances to be fair, but a bad film that isn't bad enough to be worth recommending.

After the complex, challenging, touching and definitely mature "Mysterious Skin" (2004) I was really looking forwards to Araki's new film (And let's just pretend that the 2007 Smiley Face doesn't even exist). The trailer makes Kaboom look quirky, subversive and somewhat crazy in a fresh and fun sort of way…. Once again, a misleading trailer! Unfortunately the film itself has really none of that offer, as if Araki, instead of growing up, had been regressing to a film student again, because, that's what this film feels like: a polished and yet pointless student film! And believe me, I've seen many of those in my life! Thomas Dekker is quite likable and he's probably the best thing in the film and yet he's struggling with a story that has no beginning and no end (literally no end!)… and actually, come to think of it, no middle either! The film tries to be anarchic, dark, sexy, funny, rude, aping films like Donnie Darko and even The Rules of Attraction (which was a pretty faulty film anyway). In the end it is just too chaotic and definitely too silly to be taken seriously or to even recommend. There are very few original ideas and the little excitement in there is only given by the music and the editing, but certainly not by the story. Even the few good lines of dialogue in the script remain too isolated and detached be noticed, let alone remembered and they get lost in the ludicrous plot. What is real? Is there a conspiracy? Who are those people dressed like animals? Does any of this really matter? And actually, do we give a toss? In the end it's very hard to care about who does what and why, so basically you'll just end up waiting to see who's going to have sex with whom, (basically everyone seems bed down with just about everyone else in this movie despite their gender differences) and yet, none of the sex never has anything to do with the story. It is completely incidental and purely exploitive. But even if you take it as a sexy film , beyond its average straight/gay/bi soft-core porn clichés, it is all quite unremarkable and gets nowhere close to push any boundary and it thinks it does. In fact it all gets rather repetitive (I lost the count of how many times some character wakes up all of a sudden from some bad dream). This film might have been the director's wet dream, but none of that excitement shows up in the final product. I'll give Araki one last chance then I'll begin to think that "Mysterious Skin" was just a lucky mistake in an otherwise disastrous filmography MoviegeekBlog.wordpress.com

I have not been a big fan of Gregg Araki's films in the past but "Kaboom" is easily my favorite and it is his funniest.

Obviously this is not a film for everyone. It is kind of a cross between "Scott Pilgrim versus the World" and "Donnie Darko" but "Kaboom" places more emphasis on comedy than narrative. From reading the other reviews on IMDb, a lot of people did not get the jokes. I was laughing throughout the entire movie. If you are offended by sexual content, this movie is not for you.

This is one of the best ensemble casts I've seen in a while. Most of them are new to me. I predict Juno Temple is on her way to becoming a star.

While "Kaboom" is definitely not for everyone, if you are willing to take a chance on an end-of-the-world sex comedy, you should give it a try.

Gregg Araki continues his daring sojourn into the arena that other filmmakers avoid - frank sexual adventures of every kind, characters whose placement in the story is often like window dressing for effect, and yet out of it all comes a fascinating if at time discombobulating tale that appeals to a certain audience - and doesn't mind if the rest of the folks who don't approve of his antics even attend!

The film follows the life of one Smith (Thomas Dekker) and his everyday life in the dorm - hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella (Haley Bennett), hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London (Juno Temple), lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor (Chris Zylka). Smith parties, sleeps around with both men (Jason Olive, Andy Fischer-Price) and women in various combinations. He's bisexual, is about to turn 19 and is having strange dreams which seem to work their way into his life. There's gay sex, lesbian sex, witchcraft, men in animal masks, murder and some secret organization - it all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night when all the signs of Smith's dreams seem to come together in a apocalyptic fusion that involves Smith's father (Michael James Spall), Smith's hedonistic mother (Kelly Lynch), and visits from the Messiah! It is a sci-fi story centered on the sexual awakening of a group of college students.

Dekker somehow carries this film due to his skills as an actor but also his complete involvement in what is obviously Araki's secondary persona. It is a crazy film, rich in color, at many times ludicrous, and at other times very sexy - you know, the way Gregg Araki continues to make these solid little art house movies. It would be silly to fault KABOOM for being shallow or unserious; its whole mode of being is profoundly antiserious, playfully assaulting any form of earnestness other than Smith's emo melancholy.

Grady Harp

This is Gregg Araki's best film since his 1997 "Nowhere" and the kind of gay comedy I can show to people who hate gay comedies.

Why? Because, while the cast is gorgeous, they are also fantastic actors - and Araki knows how to direct and edit comedy. The gags are timed to perfection and character's tongues are kept firmly in cheek (in other words, you don't find witless muscle boys mugging the camera in a Gregg Araki film).

Silly and goofy? Yes. But so what? It is like a great big gay version of "Escape to Witch Mountain" with a little flesh thrown in for good measure.

Great fun!

This is the second Gregg Araki film that I've tried to watch, and I hated it even more than the first (Doom Generation). For his fans, I'm sure this is going to be a positive experience, but I think that I will never, ever be a Gregg Araki fan.

Most of this film is pointless sex scenes, sarcastic dialogue that desperately wants to be witty (and ends up trying way too hard), lecturing the audience, and gleefully indulging in independent film clichés. Perhaps the absolute worst part is the absolute pandering he does to disaffected teenagers.

It's time for Araki to get a new schtick. I didn't like his style the first time I came into contact with it, and I figured maybe it was time to give him another chance. It's been 15 years since The Doom Generation, and he's still going on about the same crap. It makes me happy that I skipped everything between them.

Let's make it straight i'm not 20 year old anymore since a long time ...but this "teen" (?) movie entertained me with joy :^) pretty chicks , good sex humor and lots of pretty guy & girl ..what do you want more ? ..mmmh..euh..well with a good scenario (i mean by that until the end ) i will have rated it 7 or 8 , but the 15 last Mn leave the audience with a strange taste of ? i don't know what . It makes you feel like they already plan a "Kaboom II" ? Or did they ran out of budget with a urgent need to finish it ?. Too bad it could have been very enjoyable film (thought more oriented for teens) and it's only the 2/3 of a good entertaining movie. I rated 6 ( the director should thanks all those beautiful bodies, faces and ..hmmm :^) )

I found this film through Juno Temple who has almost always picked good roles in my opinion. Upon seeing that this shared a director with Mysterious Skin (2004) I was even more excited to watch this. In the end I was pretty disappointed in the film though it had its moments.

From the outset the film has somewhat of a dreamlike feel to it with all of the colors saturated to a point fitting of a fantasy sequence. The story is equally strange and seems to exist slightly outside of what is real. I felt that the film jumping around seemed to add to this (as well as descriptive names such as London speaking with a British accent and the few instances of supernatural abilities.) While it certainly wasn't totally incoherent it would jump from drama and the main character trying to find answers to a totally random sex scene that seems to come from nowhere and does nothing to advance the story.

By far the most disappointing and bizarre piece of the film is the ending. It makes an attempt at tying all of the different stories together but in doing so directly contradicts at least one character's story. It comes off so intensely far-fetched that I wondered if maybe the movie all along is about a schizophrenic individual just imagining his reality.

All in all it was pretty boring to watch with only a few dramatic, funny or visually interesting moments. I thought the sex scenes were okay and the mysterious parts were pretty good. It was just the erratic storyline and wacky ending that really ruined it for me.

I'm not gonna spend my time talking KABOOM up and up. There is no need. It is, in a way, a return to form from Gregg Araki, and also somewhat exploratory, with genre. It's not his best film, but it's not his worst either. What constantly strikes me about his work is the way so many people who negatively review it, cite all the wrong things as why it's bad. It's as if every negative review of his films, and every negative reviewer is determined to showcase precisely the things which are intentional, to the film, as mistakes or reasons for it's overarching badness. Does POST-MODERNISM really get lost on so many? Case and point: The first review on this page (at the time of my writing THIS review) is titled, "Pointless photoshopped farce perpetrated on your wallet. Take your kids" I mean, yeah. Duh. That WAS the point. It's pointless, photoshopped, vapid, and....YOU MISSED THE RELEVANCE. You weren't IN on the joke and that's your fault. It's social commentary. Surely, you can understand social commentary's place in art? That statement may as well be a blurb on the cover of the DVD, trying to gather attention for it's purchase. It's not really doing it any injustice. Now, like I said, this film certainly isn't perfect, but boy do some people need to better train their eyes.

I get that this was the director's attempt at a dream-like film. His attempt at subjectivity. But it is pretty sub-par at that. The character are emotionless and lifeless and could have been played by anyone. Literally any person. The gratuitous sex just got irritating after awhile.

I've seen the film described as a "youth culture" film and it doesn't even deserve that title. I get that this is supposed to be empowering towards gay culture as well and I'm all for that. Have two gay lead characters is great and refreshing. But having them just have sex the entire movie is not a movie. Its a soft core porno.

Overall, I don't recommend this film to anyone. I was expecting a trippy, experimental dream- like film, and I got something completely different.

Smith (Thomas Dekker) is an 18-year old university student majoring in film studies that is having both weird and wet dreams, right before his 19th birthday. After a series of hook-ups and seemingly random sexual encounters, things are really starting to get crazy: Men in animal masks appear, a creepy girl with superpowers and a voodoo doll and of course all kinds of sexy sex. After a couple of days of confusion and meaningless sex, Smith however starts to realize what's going on, but is he in time to save the world from its impending doom and an evil cult leader determined blow it up?

Kaboom is a charming film, beautifully shot in bright, saturated colors, that supply almost feel too fake to be true. Yet, strangely the film provides a wholly immersive experience, probably fueled by Araki's intuitive and appropriate use of shoegaze. Much like Sofia Coppola, another fan of the genre, Gregg Araki allows you to really feel the film. The dialogue doesn't always come through like you'd want and feels scripted and clichéd in some instances, but it's always funny and quotable. Gregg seems to be winking at the audience, acknowledging and fully embracing the silliness of the story. That's partly why I can forgive some of movie's obvious flaws.

Thomas Dekker, the leading man of this picture, does a fine job most of the time and I couldn't imagine this film without it; however he seems to be trying too hard in some scenes, bordering the line of over-acting, you can see his acting. While it's a bit distracting, the supporting cast, with Araki regular James Duval as the ridiculously named Messiah, does a fantastic job of making you forgive him. Another minor distraction is the use of purposely bad transitions; I'm more of a fan of the traditional fade to black, but it adds to the quirky spirit of the film, which I'm all for. It is in fact more than anything it's the films' goodhearted nature and sweetness I take away and remember most fondly.

Reliving all these emotions for the third time, this is one of my favorite films, I noticed a lot of new things. Some of the scenes are really "useless", in that they don't help forwarding the plot, but are mostly there to be funny and help creating a mood. That's partly where the appeal of the film lies for me: It's not so much plot driven as it is a portrayal of the college experience and what it means to be a young adult, a transitional stage between "high-school and the rest of your life" as one of the character puts it. In that regard the movie succeeds completely, because it really captures what it's like to 'feel lost'.

Gregg Araki's very personal piece, once again he's a master of his sub-genre, while making a statement on the future of film, and blending different genres for a highly satisfying experience. Kaboom won the first ever Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival and is indeed recommended for fans of his other work, if you like unique and unusual films or if you just want to see the only car chasing sequence ever playing to shoegaze.

Smith's everyday life in the dorm -- hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor -- all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night.

I watched this because it had James Duval, although his role is very small (he plays a pro-legalization Rastafarian). But it is also a Gregg Araki film ,so it was worth watching just for that.

Araki made some of the great nihilistic films of the 1990s, including "Doom Generation" and "Nowhere". They may not be critical successes and may be a bit tarnished in retrospect, but they influenced me as a 90s teenager. With this film, it seems I have grown up but Araki has not.

He is still focused on the sexuality of young people, particularly the line between homosexuality and heterosexuality... a line he likes to blur. This is very much a return to the sexual politics of "Doom Generation", though without the nihilism. Still the weirdness, without the despair. Worth a peek but hardly a winner.

This movie literally has zero redeeming qualities. It's an hour and a half that would be better spent doing pretty much anything else besides watching this movie. The acting is terrible. It's like they got a bunch of kids from a high school drama class and some B-list movie extras, tossed them a script, and told them to have at it. And the plot is virtually nonexistent. Like a bunch of random events tossed together as filler, with little bits here and there of content that is actually pertinent to the story. And when plot does make an appearance, it's almost comically stupid. Imagine an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, make it 3 times longer, and then throw in some tits. About a third of the way through I had to force myself to not turn the movie off in hopes that it would somehow get better. It only got worse. I haven't seen a movie this bad in a very long time. I rated it 1 out of ten only because zero wasn't an available option.