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No matter where life takes us as adults, we can never really recreate the carefree fun of the summer vacations of our youth—when we had days with nothing to do but have fun with our friends. But in Summer Camp, three friends do their best to recapture the fun of their childhood summers.
Summer Camp joins three old friends as they reunite at Camp Pinnacle, where they met 50 years ago as preteen outsiders. Now, outgoing Ginny (Kathy Bates) is a world-renowned self-help guru. Bookish Nora (Diane Keaton) is the CEO of a bioengineering company. And mild-mannered Mary (Alfre Woodard) is a hard-working wife, mother, and nurse. When Ginny convinces her friends to go back to Camp Pinnacle for another week of friendship and fun with a bunch of familiar faces, they find themselves caught up in more summer adventures, summer romances, and summer drama.
Though Ginny is excited to spend the week with her old friends, the other two women aren’t quite as eager. Handing their phones over to the camp counselors means that workaholic Nora will have to use the camp’s antiquated computer room to keep up with her colleagues—and Mary will be unreachable to her dependent and demanding husband. But as they struggle to disconnect from the outside world while reconnecting with their camp friends, they find themselves on all kinds of wild adventures—and they end up reuniting with their preteen crushes in the process.
As you might expect, there’s a whole lot of over-the-top comedy here. As the women participate in the old camp activities while facing off against “The Pretty Committee” led by Beverly D’Angelo’s Jane, the characters behave as you’d expect. Kathy Bates’s Ginny is bold and outspoken—and she ends up pushing her friends a little too hard. Alfre Woodard’s Mary struggles to find her voice. And Diane Keaton’s Nora spends a lot of time shrieking and being quirky. While it has a few amusing moments—and some charming moments, too—it’s predictably overdone and sometimes just plain cringe-worthy, and any kind of coherent message gets lost along the way. Though it looks like the cast had fun making the film, it’s not quite as much fun to watch.
With its big-name cast in a fun summer setting, Summer Camp could have been a fun-filled comedy about grown-up characters facing the same old summer camp problems. But it gets a little too caught up in its big personalities and over-the-top performances. This one is just for the stars’ most loyal fans.
You can reunite with this trio of friends when Summer Camp arrives in theaters on May 31, 2024.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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