Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
Directed by Josh Greenbaum
The story of best friends Barb and Star, who leave their small midwestern town for the first time to go on vacation in Vista Del Mar, Florida, where they soon find themselves tangled up in adventure, love, and a villain’s evil plot to kill everyone in town.
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8 films that influenced Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
What critics say influenced Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
There are clear antecedents for Barb & Star’s vibe; the whole double role and supervillain schtick recalls Austin Powers, and the surreal digressions recall Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s comedies of the early 2000s, particularly Step Brothers .
"Barb and Star's" free-flowing comic energy is reminiscent of the first "Austin Powers" film and the way Mike Myers was able to get away with anything that he thought was funny.
Like some of the old-timey genre classics it recalls — Blazing Saddles , Airplane , the first Austin Powers — Barb and Star commits to its deep silliness so sweetly and completely that you can't help falling a little bit in love with them too.
Although not as on the nose or referential as Spy (2015) and the Austin Powers trilogy, the obvious stunt doubles, bad VFX, and overlong villain monologues are hilarious.
This is a very loose mash up of Austin Powers and any given Will Ferrell film, cursed with a kind of live-action Muppets makeover (this last part is directly referenced) sans any actual spirit of anarchy.
The best way to describe Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is like if you combined the absurdist, nonsensical, silly nature of the early days of Spongebob Squarepants , the light charm of a Muppets movie and a dash of Austin Powers played towards the late-‘00s/early-‘10s SNL crowd.
There are clear antecedents for Barb & Star’s vibe; the whole double role and supervillain schtick recalls Austin Powers, and the surreal digressions recall Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s comedies of the early 2000s, particularly Step Brothers .
With musical interludes, talking crabs, magic culotte pants and literal embodiments of Tommy Bahama (played by an actor whose eventual closing credit is even a pretty funny joke), Barb and Star conjures a surprising stoner vibe, as well as surreal tangents a la Step Brothers , to counter the gal-pal echoes of Wiig and Mumolo’s 2011 sleeper hit.
Their latest feature feels of a piece with McKay’s comedies Step Brothers and The Other Guys, blending humor, absurdity, and the occasional musical number to great effect.
So, it is with this acknowledgment of my own sad ass drama burnout in mind, that I announce: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is GODDAMN DELIGHTFUL, the most singularly absurd comedy since Step Brothers and an instant classic.
Their latest feature feels of a piece with McKay’s comedies Step Brothers and The Other Guys, blending humor, absurdity, and the occasional musical number to great effect.
Few of the most talented SNL ladies have launched a Mike Myers-style big-screen showcase; there's no Blues Brothers or Wayne's World equivalent for Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, or even Wiig's contemporaries, like Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph.
And yet despite reverberating on a similar comedic frequency to SNL flicks like Wayne’s World and MacGruber — with a string of freewheeling comedy antics hanging loosely on a truly unhinged narrative — Barb And Star didn’t originate in a skit.
(This movie does for culottes what “Wayne’s World” did for Queen.)
Wiig’s evil alter ego, Dr. Lady, who looks like a Tim Burton villain mixed with something from Zoolander (Will Ferrell and Adam McKay serve as producers, which might mislead some into what they’d expect from the material) has her own moments with sidekick Yoyo (Reyn Doi, opening the film with a fun lip synch to “Guilty” by Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb).
This is Wiig’s Austin Powers or Zoolander or MacGruber , a bizarre, ridiculous movie that feels like an overgrown comedy sketch, and doesn’t really have enough comedic material to sustain a feature film.
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is every bit about the power of friendship, but its comedic stylings and strokes lean far closer to Zoolander (2001) than Bridesmaids .
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It’s Austin Powers meets Mamma Mia! , with a dash of The Hangover thrown in there as well – an insane yet magical combination that wields one of the most entertaining comedies in recent memory.
With a pseudo-nemesis hotel manager, a la “The Out-of-Towners,” booze-and-drug-fueled partying (like in every teen movie of the ’90s or, more recently, “Booksmart”), and toned-down shenanigans reminiscent of “Dumb and Dumber” and the films of Andy Samberg (and a hint of “Horrible Bosses”), this brightly-colored, light-hearted comedy instantly betrays a confused (or garbled) tone.
Dr Lady’s statuesque poses, pallid skin, and black bob, all have traces of Blanchett’s characters in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017).