After slogging through 7 ‘Evil Bong’ movies I wasnt exactly racing to dive into a spinoff film based on a fairly new character to the series who’s first appearence was border monotone and second appearence was basically a character focussed on Weed and Boobs and not much else.

It was then, with some great surprise that I found myself actually kind of enjoying ‘The Gingerweed Man’ Not so much for the quality of the production (its SUPER stupid, make NO mistake…) But rather, because it finally manages to nail the tone these kinds of movies really needed from the start. Self aware enough to know all of these characters are terribly developed and written, Self aware enough to know this whole franchise is a total dogs dinner. But not SO self aware that it gets in your face and annoying gloats about it.

The plots pretty straightforward, ‘The Gingerweed Man’ has split off and opened his own weed delivery business with a business partner he’s utterly smitten by. However his constant drive for partying and banging quote ‘bimbos’ has meant that any kind of romantic realtionship with his partner is off the table. While out on deliveries Gingerweed heads back to his dispensery for another pickup, only to find a scientist there dying on the floor who gives Gingy a weird little nugget and tells him to protect it at all cost. This is ‘Buddy’ an alien sentient strain of weed who can only say the word ‘Buddy’ who’s herbal qualities are prophesized to bring about world peace.

Unfortunately Gingerweeds too stupid to understand exactly whats happening and before you know it Buddy and Gingys partner have been kidnapped with the end goal to sell the pair into a prostitution racket. Leaving Gingy and…Ooga Booga…*sigh* to head out and rescue the pair.

And I think the thing I enjoy most about this movie is that they nail the exact right level of stupid in ‘Gingerweed’ that was required for this kind of movie. He’s a total idiot, he can barely remember what day it is…But it’s more in a ‘Beavis and Butthead’ level of idiocy than the kind of One dimensional irritating screechy stupidity that has been prominent in the ‘Evil Bong’ series. Clocking in as well at a mere 47 minutes, this things an absolute breeze to get through and, if anything DID leave me wanting just a little bit more.

The scripts a little aimless, but that kind of plays into the kind of stupid tone the films going for anyway (Think Beavis and Butthead Do the Universe where there IS a plot present, but our characters are too stupid to really engage in it and end up getting involved in their own movie almost by accident) It has a clean 3 act structure, the dialogues probably the best i’ve seen an heard from the ‘Evil Bong’ franchise to date. Characters arnt that well developed, but it actually helps make the film a bit funnier that they dont really get developed beyond a surface level and the script writer actually subverts expectations on occasion by giving some characters really details backstories that just instantly get dismissed with some really solid comic timing.

Is this a masterpiece? absolutely not. But its one of the most solid ‘Full Moon’ scripts I’ve watching in quite a long time, it keeps a decent pace and manages to balance its elements fairly well.

The film looks a little cheaper than previous entries (which is increasingly becoming a problem), but they do have a lot more set spaces and location work here than with previous movies, theres some real attempt to styalize ‘in camera’ rather than just leaving it to post, the CG is fairly minimal and only really used to smooth over visual effects or help emphisize specific elements of the shot. It looks filmic for the most part, which is more than can be said for the previous entries in this franchise.

The cine is well composed, creative in places and the edit feels pretty tight comparatively. If anything, it probably could have stood to slow things down ever so slightly. Which is always a good sign.

In fact, my only real criticism is that, they do over rely on boob shots and women in lengerie to help pad out some of the moments of runtime. They play the joke that Gingy isnt interested in boobs, then he sees boobs and becomes MASSIVELY interested in boobs a couple times too many for me. But that does kind of fall into the films overly dumb dumb remit.

They tease a possible sequel to this film in the credits, and I do kind of hope they go through with it. If they can keep the tone, timing and pacing together. I think this one could go onto be quite a fun and interesting little series. Its not an essential watch in the grand scheme of things, But if you have a subscription to ‘Full Moon’s’ streaming service. Id definitely suggest checking it out as a work of ‘Dumby dumb dumb theater’

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-gingerweed-man/