Review: Yoga Hosers

Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers is one of the most bafflingly entertaining films of the year. A part-time cheesy teen movie, part-time goofy horror flick and full-time American satire of Canada, Nazis, Canadian Nazis, ‘kids today,’ and of course yoga, it never really asks to be taken seriously, just to be enjoyed. It's a follow-up to Smith's previous film, Tusk, with Johnny Depp reprising his role as the eccentric Guy Lapointe. However, it still works as a standalone film. Those who haven't seen the first movie will be a bit confused by the odd reference to a man being turned into a walrus, but with a script this off-the-wall those moments will hardly stick out. Yoga Hosers follows the misadventures of Colleen McKenzie (Harley Quinn Smith) and Colleen Collette (Lily-Rose Depp), two best friends who are almost never apart. Together, they are taking yoga classes run by Comic Side Character Yogi Bayer (Justin Long) who teaches a very unusual type of yoga. They also sing in a band together, where they mock Oddball Sidekick Ichabod (Adam Brody) their long-suffering drummer. They rehearse in the back room of the dreaded general store that they both work at. They hate their jobs. They can’t stand the customers, or the fact that they’re working for Daggy Dad Mr Collette (Tony Hale) and his new girlfriend, Evil Stepmother Tabitha (Natasha Lyonne). One day, their daily drudgery is interrupted by the arrival of Hot Guy Hunter Calloway (Austin Butler) and Gross Wingman Gordon Greenleaf (Tyler Posey), two senior students who invite them to a wild house party happening tomorrow night. However, they are gutted when Tabitha whisks her bumbling Bob away on a surprise trip to Niagara falls, purposely leaving the Colleens with the store to run on the very same night of the party. On top of that, Mean PE Teacher, Ms Wuckland (Genesis Rodriguez) has done the unthinkable and confiscated their phones for the day, which of course pretty much puts their entire lives on hold. Until they can collect them from Wacky Principle Invincible (Sassier Zamata), they might as well pay attention to Exotic Exposition teacher Ms Maurice (Vanessa Paradis) as she teaches the class a backstory about Canadian Nazis, one that will become very important once this movie's scary sci-fi subplot kicks in. Even before it does, however, Yoga Hosers doesn't feel like your typical trashy teen horror film. Evidently, as far as plot and characters go, it follows the formula to the letter, but in terms of tone it is much more sardonic than your average high school movie. For instance, the audaciously named Principle Invincible slips some biting remarks on racial privilege in between the standard routine for her character trope. She and the rest of the cast are also all in on the wall-to-wall Canada jokes. This ensemble of mostly American actors speak in a hilarious hodgepodge of their native accents, a touch of Québécois and as many oots as Smith could write into the script. Once the plot starts swerving in all sorts of directions, the fun quickly increases, and just occasionally decreases. Each twist is certainly unexpected, though largely because no groundwork is really laid down for any them before they arrive. They're not exactly believe, but they don't aspire to be. They are mostly there for novelty, not complexity, and the film only truly suffers when that novelty wears off in between the scattered climaxes. If this were an artistic film, it would probably be called an "eclectic mix" of genres and characters, but as a piece of mainstream entertainment it is more likely to be called "a mess," but what a glorious mess it is. Each subplot is basically a vehicle for the surprisingly star-studded cast to engage in some self-parody. It is very satisfying to see Hayley Joel Osment and all of the other young adult stars subverting their usual roles. There are also many memorable pop culture gags. Most of them are very contemporary, such as the uproariously paradoxical reference to Orange is the New Black. Has Collette just never noticed that her dad's new girlfriend looks and sounds exactly like Nicky Nichols? Or the actor who plays her? Oh well, who cares. Meanwhile, some of the more classically educated moviegoers in the audience will appreciate the older references, which all come from Ralph Garman's gallery of impressions. As one of the funnier Nazi caricatures that we've seen recently, Garman does flawless impersonations of actors like Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and even the lisping Ed Wynn (best known for Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland). All of these are lost on the young Colleens but Guy Fontaine is very impressed by them. It might just sound like Hollywood nepotism to have Lily-Rose Depp share scenes with her mum, dad and even her little brother, Jack, all while Harley Quinn Smith is being directed by her dad, but the Depps really do bounce off each other well, and Kevin Smith does get a good performance out of his daughter. The results here might not exactly be cinematic gold, but they are nothing like the debacle that was After Earth or The Godfather: Part III. It's also very refreshing to see a film with two female protagonists who both remain happily single from beginning to end. Yoga Hosers is silly, lightweight fun that usually knows where its limits are. It doesn't attempt to hold its audience's interest for more than 90 minutes, but it does still expect them to engage with its fight scenes, even though no suspense is ever properly built for them. Sometimes Kevin Smith seems to forget that, although the Colleens are likeable and enjoyable to watch, since there is no emotional investment made at the start, there can be no dramatic payoff at the end, even though there are plenty of comedic payoffs. Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

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