Rent Premature (2014)

Premature review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Premature may be one of the strangest concoctions of a teen sex comedy ever conceived. It’s as if writers from National Lampoon and Playboy collaborated over pizza and beers watching American Pie, Animal House and Groundhog Day. To even describe the plot would mean delving deep into the vulgar and gross-out nature. I’ll do my best to keep it clean, but I still feel the need to warn readers that what you’re about to discover from Premature is quite the twisted little script more worthy of a pornography flick. I’d also like to assure you that what I relay is a real movie for those who doubt its premise.

Teenager Rob (Jon Karna) awakens after a very sexy dream which seems to have been inspired from the movie Total Recall. His departure from his slumber is in the form of a premature ejaculation which is in plain view when his mother comes in to wake him up. After an awkward conversation with both his hard-edged dad and his grossed out mother, it’s off to school with his group of quirky friends. Some snobby jocks throw urine all over his best pants and on the day of his interview for college. Thankfully, the interviewer Jack (Alan Tudyk) sympathizes with his bully plight and even breaks down hysterically in front of Rob. For his evening plans, Rob has been given a chance to get with his dream girl Angela (Carlson Young) and blow off his clearly better-for-him friend Gabrielle (Katie Findlay).

One thing leads to another and Rob starts making out with Angela, but soon finds himself about to climax. When he finally does, he finds himself awakening on the same day in the morning with his mom bursting in on him once again. Yes, this is the actual twist of the film. It’s the same plot of Groundhog Day, reliving the same day over and over until the protagonist does something right. But instead of a reporter reliving the day each time he dies or goes to sleep, a high school student relives the same day every time he pleasures himself. Thus begins Rob’s endless amount of consequence-free fun in the school as he can fix all the mistakes he makes during the day and make intentional ones without a care in the world. He drives golf carts through the school hallways, grabs his hot teacher’s breasts and even gets into fights. If things get too hairy or he needs to reset, all he has to do is pleasure himself and all his problems are solved. Like I said, a premise better suited for a porno.

The comedy of Premature is all over the place. Most of the characters exist for a handful of jokes that seem to come in at random. The jocks are a group of volleyball players with one of them happening to be gay which causes an awkward tone when Rob blows up at them about their homophobic thoughts. Rob’s pal Stanley (Craig Roberts) seems to have the strangest and creepiest theories on sexual relations. Stanley relays a condom layering method to Rob as the two of them stand before a pharmacy worker waiting to unlock the display case for their choice in contraception. Rob’s dad and his interviewer seem to be the creepiest of them all who display far too much of an infatuation with Rob getting laid. It apparently doesn’t bother either Rob or his girl as the two male adults cheer him on just outside the window to go get himself some (neither Rob nor his girl react to them as if the adults are ghosts). And there are plenty of other strange additions such as a young kid who charges high school teachers for lesson plans and an exchange student from Israel with a very creepy personality.

I wish I could applaud Premature for taking a bit of a sci-fi angle to the teen sex comedy, but it’s still just a smattering of random humor that doesn’t all quite fit. It juggles too many plots that go nowhere, too many characters with little to do and too much sex that it starts to become a boring punchline. The film seems almost desperate for a laugh at times. In one of the strangest moments, Rob finds himself in the principal’s office awaiting the cops and needs to masturbate to get out of there. He tries to hide his act from the principal once his back is turned, but he can’t quite reach the hand lotion. He decides to make do with a packet of mayo next to him. The principal turns around infuriated and questions the mayo that is now on his pants. That is about the full extent of the humor you can expect from Premature, a raunchy comedy for the horniest and depraved of adolescent teens. It gets points for attempting a different premise, but not much else in terms of follow through.