Let the “Games” be finished!
“Buddy Games,” which The Post awarded zero stars in 2020, now has a stomach-churning sequel called “Buddy Games: Spring Awakening.”
BUDDY GAMES: SPRING AWAKENING
Running time: 91 minutes. Rated R (crude sexual material, language throughout, drug use, some nudity and violent material). In theaters.
Miraculously, this clunker is worse than the original in every respect, but zero is as low as we can go. Like the original, “Spring Awakening” easily ranks among the worst movies of the year.
The rock-bottom film series continues to be a turgid rip-off of “The Hangover,” with a group of bozos boozing and drugging into oblivion in the name of masculine pride, except in this case it is we, the viewer, who are left with a hangover.
We get nauseous, we develop a splitting headache and we regret our choices afterward. Of course, the best hangover cure, as any doctor will tell you, is to not partake in the first place.
“Spring Awakening,” which features no singing German teens, starts with the death of Durfy (played in the last film by Dax Shepard), a member of the clique of awful friends who compete in the Buddy Games.
Those titular challenges are completely gross feats of strength and substance abuse that result in shame, maiming and the victor winning a bucket.
A C-List actor, Durfy perished while playing the role of Harry Houdini in a movie.
“Another senseless death at the hands of method acting,” says a news anchor.
At his funeral, attended by Bobfather (Josh Duhamel), Doc (Kevin Dillon), Bender (Nick Swardson) and Shelly (Dan Bakkedahl), a mourner yells, “You’re nothing but single middle-aged losers who never grew up!”
To prove the sensible guy wrong, they steal their fallen pal’s urn and toss it around like a football while his ashes fly all over the place.
The reason they smuggle the cremated remains is to honor Durfy by helicoptering to the beach town site of the first Buddy Games. Their sexy spring break locale? Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia, Canada. Couldn’t spring for Cancun?
Upon arrival, they learn that a bar called Party Marty’s has stolen their not trademarked, copyright protected or clever idea.
“You’re the Bobfather!” says a furious Shelly. “You started these games. You gotta get in there and stop these posers.”
So the idiots decide to battle it out against young coeds, with team names such as Bitchcraft, Trend Z and The Bad Brotha F–kaz.
One bikini-clad woman chucks a beer can at Shelly’s face and gruesomely breaks his nose, and they lose. Hilarious!
They get over it quickly and crash a new-age rave in the woods where they lick hallucinogenic toads and 20-somethings lecture them about pronouns and inclusivity. One character is referred to on the film’s IMDB page only as “Woke Woman.”
The cult’s leader is a loony woman named Phoenix (Carmel Amit), who traps Bobfather and Bender in a kind-of reeducation camp to make them less problematic. Shelly and Doc, meanwhile, wake up at a rural whorehouse called the Panty Hamster.
Every juvenile attempt at humor in this movie, which is directed not by a beer koozie but by Duhamel, is revolting. Think projectile vomiting, toilet gags and enough lower anatomy jokes for a lifetime. And while wokeness is ripe for excoriating satire, these obvious setups and punchlines are groaners.
Over at the brainwashing cult, the bros are locked in an escape room. In order to get out and not be canceled, they play a game in which they place words and pictures into the correct categories. For example, “Men” goes to “Bad” and a kid dressed up as a Native American goes to “Very Bad.”
I’d drag “Buddy Games: Spring Awakening” over to “Abysmal.”
