VIDEO: The trailer for Fanboys
As endearingly grungy and careworn as the Mos Eisley cantina in the original, pre-digitized, puppets-and-all 1977 print of Star Wars, Fanboys is a sweet little road-trip comedy, one that happens to be about five nerds plotting to break into George Lucas's compound in 1998 to get an early glimpse at the first new SW film in 16 years. Bonus points to director Kyle Newman for upping Kristen Bell's already solid geek cred (and for squeezing her into Princess Leia's gold bikini), for catering to a different set of geeks by finding a role for Danny Trejo, and for suggesting (gently) that Lucas has become the evil emperor he once warned us about. You don't have to be a Jedi acolyte to enjoy Fanboys as a comic trifle, but you may become annoyed when the guy next to you elbows you in the ribs after every in-joke and every surprise cameo from a nerd-world notable. After all, as one character claims, the fanboy experience isn't so much about living in a fantasy universe as it is about bonding over that fantasy with your friends.