We’re now 6 entries deep into the ‘Evil Bong’ franchise and when it comes to ‘High 5’ there isnt really a whole lot to say. I would say in *some* regards we’re once again moving in the right direction incrementally across the board in terms of the film looking nicer and it establishing a bit more of an identity. But the problems that plagued ‘420’ and ‘Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong’ are still as present as ever.

For a starter, it’s nice that this thing actually has an ACTUAL 3 act plot! something that the previous entry considered ‘optional’ this one actually has a beginning, middle, and most importantly this is the first ‘Evil Bong’ movie in at LEAST 4 films to BOTHER to have the film have some kind of meaningful ending, rather than the film just abruptly stopping with a hard cut to credits.

The plots simple, After the events of ‘420’ Rabbit, Larnell and his 2 girlfriends have been transported into the ‘Bong world’ and have spent the better part of a few months indulging to the point that they’re bored of it and have taken up Crochet.

That is until Ebee turns up, tells Rabbit and Larnell that she’s bored too and wants to spice things up by taking over the world. and sets the pair the task of raising 1 million dollars so that she can spread her magical evil bong seeds across the world and take it over. Larnells Girlfriends are held hostage as collateral with two dominatrix’s, and thus; the fundraiser is on! Oh…and Gingerdead Man was also trapped in the Bong world, has seemingly lost all his psychotic murdering urges because of the constant weed, and decides to help Rabbit and Larnell too.

And, as you can imagine, the rest of the film is wacky hyjinx, cameos from other Full Moon properties and the lowest of the lowest comedy offerings.

What I will say in its defence, is that ‘High 5’ DOES seem to have learnt from the mistakes made in ‘420’ those crazy random ‘Is this the plot!?’ issues I had with ‘420’ are still prevelent here. But because the film establishes the ‘fundraiser’ thing as being the main drive of the movie, it means these little interruptions are much MUCH less annoying and distracting, and actually kind of entertaining as a result.

They do another David Decoteau cameo, but this time it’s clearly played more for laughs, they bring older characters back like the Bowling ally workers, Ooga Booga and Larnells Grandpa, but they’re all clearly set up as small little cameos and arnt really there to move the film along in anyway.

The one thing I did find entertaining in this movie was Gingerdead mans character change. in this, he’s a total softy recovering from a bit of a bad breakup and it was kind of nice to see them play the character as a bit of an inverse to what we’ve known him as for the last few films. it added a bit more depth and interest to the character. Though I really do wish they’d done this 1 film earlier, as had they done this storyline in ‘420’ i’d have probably been more receptive to it, rather than them doing it here where i’d very much lost a lot of my interest in the characters.

Other than that, its a really basic script, but it does hit the basic notes. 3 act structure, at least a couple of levels of character depth, a couple of sub-plots to help keep things a bit more interesting. The QUALITY of the writing hasnt changed at all, it’s still just terrible TERRIBLE dialogue. But at least it’s ACTUALLY working as most movies should do.

One of the bigger issues this film has is, I feel like a memo was sent to ‘Full Moon’ that fans were a bit annoyed that the last film was basically an advert for ‘Full Moons’ Merch store, because in this one, they REALLY play into that with faux adverts popping up across the runtime for ‘Ooga Booga’ resin statues, and other Evil Bong Merch. I still really didnt get on with the tone they approached that with. and I know some folks will like the fact they embraced a fault and subverted it. But to me it feels almost like anti-advertising (basically calling out how bad your marketing stratagy was in the last movie as a way to do some further marketing) it felt a bit lazy, and the fact that, once again we’re hitting some pretty awful racist and offensive stereotyping (while playing UP the fact that they’re so cheeky for DOING said racist and offensive stereotyping…) I dunno, that really just didnt sit well with me.

Outside of that, the direction and cine are about on a par with the last movie, technically just about fine. and a lot better than earlier entries where they didnt bother with troublesome stuff like ‘B-roll’ or ‘Sets’. Its still a little on the cheap side, but I do appreciate that more of an efforts being made to try and use on set lighting and camera work to styalize this thing. Even if it’s just coloured gels here and there, it helps.

What I can say though is that the CG has somehow taken a nosedive in quality again…I didnt even think it was possible honestly, we’re now basically almost approaching stop motion photoshop grade stuff. it looks awful, it really cheapens the live action stuff and it feels kind of out of place honestly.

In terms of the edit, sequences are cut fine enough, I kind of wish there was a *little* more variety, but cheap and cheerful is on special offer this week apparently, and this movies filled its cart. its simple, doesnt go beyond ‘passable’ and even at that level, its got issues with pacing, when to cut, what to cut to, when to show and when to tell. it’s a bit clunky.

Performances are EXACTLY the same quality as ‘420’ and they play up how dumb the cast are supposed to be several times across the runtime in little ‘self aware/4th wall’ style bits. In one sense they totally nail the brief of the pretence that all these cast members are stupid as hell and couldnt be trusted to not burn cornflakes. But on the other hand, there are SO many better ways that style could be played, and im kind of bummed out the ladies basically went for ‘Valley girl airhead’ and the guys went for ‘pig headed dumb dumb’ there was so much scope for nuance.

Both this film, the previous film and the next one are something of a trilogy (they’re all revolving around the same storyline and taking place around the same time) so I wont be surprised if im back here for the next entry with the exact same thoughts as the above.

And the soundtrack…*sigh* Richard Bands back. stock ‘Full Moon’ sound is back in full force with a couple of throwback tracks from the first couple movies tossed in almost like a peace offering. I dont like it, it sounds SO stocky…im sad.

‘High 5’ IS an improvement over ‘420’ and its a full blown miracle when compared to ‘Gingerdead’ however, im applauding basics here. the films ability to just be ‘of a standard’ isnt something that really needs to be applauded. Its absolutely continuing to move in the right direction. But for almost every solid improvement, a problems been added or worsened. This is the best ‘Evil Bong’ movie since ‘Evil Bong 3’ but that REALLY isnt saying very much. Totally non essential.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-bong-high-5/