Oh no…. where do I even start? Should I start by being a giant square and say how much I hated this movie? And then just go ahead and acknowledge that I’m clearly not the target market so it hardly matters what I think? Or should I wipe all that aside and just say I was repulsed by this film’s overwhelming smugness, exhausting irreverence, and pandering campiness?
What is Dicks (The Musical)? It’s the gay Parent Trap, I guess. Two heterosexual corporate dicks discover they are identical twins and now that they want to get their parents back together again.
But even saying that ignores the fact that this movie doesn’t care about plot and, indeed, only has a plot to satirize the concept of plots. It’s a big showy musicals that mocks the concept of big showy musicals.
It turns out it’s possible to be too irreverent, too showy, too satirical, and yes… too campy. Its a bright, flashing sign saying “Look at me being raunchy. Aren’t I just so transgressive?” I was instantly exhausted by its calculated attempts at being a cult hit. And yeah, the volumetric overload of “that’s just wrong” song lyrics certainly got their point across.
It’s a bunch of songs that rarely hit. But, hell, maybe the point isn’t to be catchy but to get people’s knickers in a twist. I found them boring and desperate… though the one Megan Thee Stallion song was catchy and amusing. And I kind of liked the final one too… partly for finally going too far.
The end hits with an even bigger deluge of knicker twisting obscenity… and it’s so extreme, so vulgar, it seems to be daring you to go along with it. Yes, if those reactionary book-banning, Hollywood-hating homophobes saw this movie, it’d confirm everything they already know about gay people <insert eye roll here>. They wouldn’t realize the movie is so extreme that almost nobody could really believe in its message. And that audacity kind of made me smirk… nobody gets out of this movie alive.
If you laugh at seriousness of any kind… if you think hating art is a silly way to live your life… if you think everything and everyone should be mocked, then you might love this movie. Or, hell, maybe I’m overthinking it and you’ll just have a good time at the campy musical.
Score: 70