The inspirational teacher movie and the inspirational sports movie are two of the most proven formulas for filmmakers looking to make pictures that will appeal to the mainstream. And Kevin James is a comic actor who has built a very lucrative career out of making movies that are aimed squarely at the mainstream. Put them all together and you get Here Comes the Boom, a movie about a burnt out school teacher who rediscovers his passion for teaching after embarking on a ridiculous plan to make enough money fighting MMA to save his school’s music program.
Due to his playing of a wacky mall cop, a wacky zookeeper, and a wacky gay guy in his most recent outings, James has earned a reputation for making slapstick, bottom feeding, lowest common denominator comedies that are cynically pointed at the most undiscerning but profitable Middle American audiences, and Here Comes the Boom has quickly earned the reputation of being the latest installment in some sort of awful, unfunny, money grubbing quadrilogy; but it’s actually not as bad as many people’s complaining would lead you to believe.
Sure, it’s got way more misses than it does hits when it comes to laughs, but it’s not ineffective when it comes to storytelling. The inspirational teacher story and the inspirational sports story are hard to mess up. All you have to do is get the audience invested in whether the students pass the test or if the athlete wins the big game, and Here Comes the Boom pulls every dirty, manipulative trick in the book to get you to care about where things go and experience that twinge of joy once James’ character inspires everyone in the end. And though he’s not often funny, James is a relatable enough guy who knows how to get audiences behind him—and here he’s supported by the always delightful Henry Winkler and Salma Hayek, as well as a surprisingly charismatic MMA legend in Bas Rutten—so the performances are able to elevate the movie up a notch as well. It’s too derivative, too reliant on better movies that have come before it, and too unfunny to be called a real success, but Here Comes the Boom isn’t the Sandler-level disaster that you may be expecting. Families who are just looking for a nice night out at the movies will probably even come away from it feeling like it was a fun time. As long as you know what you’re getting into, you could do way worse than this one. Still though, don’t watch it.
