For Ted, prom night went about as bad as it’s possible for any night to go. Thirteen years later, he finally gets another chance with his old prom date, only to run up against other suitors including the sleazy detective he hired to find her.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.9/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.23/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 84%
Metacritic: 69
TMDB: 6.6/10
Director
Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Production
20th Century Fox
Cast
Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, Lee Evans, Chris Elliott, Lin Shaye, Jeffrey Tambor, Markie Post, Keith David, W. Earl Brown, Sarah Silverman, Khandi Alexander, Marnie Alexenburg, Danny Murphy, Richard Tyson, Rob Moran, Jackie Flynn, Hillary Matthews, Willie Garson, David Shackelford
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A very funny, very broad late-90s gross-out rom-com that still works as a star-driven farce, especially if you like comedy built on escalating humiliation, romantic obsession, and sweetly absurd payoff. Its humor is crude and dated in places, but the energy, timing, and sheer invention make it an easy recommendation for the right audience.
Best for
fans of raunchy studio comedies
viewers who like cringe humor and slapstick
people open to romantic comedies with a nasty edge
audiences nostalgic for 1990s mainstream comedy
Skip if
you dislike gross-out jokes
you want a sincere or subtle romance
offensive gender politics or juvenile humor are dealbreakers
you prefer low-key, character-driven comedy
Overview
A high-voltage farce that turns adolescent longing into a parade of escalating disasters, this is one of the defining studio comedies of the late 1990s. It runs on shameless set pieces, elastic performances, and a willingness to push every joke past the point of good taste and into something weirdly triumphant.
Worth noting
What keeps it from being just a string of crude bits is the sweetness underneath the chaos. The movie is very much about projection, obsession, and the way men mythologize women they barely know, even as it keeps finding new ways to make that premise absurd.
Bottom line
It is not for everyone, and some of the humor now lands as aggressively juvenile or mean-spirited. But if you are in the mood for a loud, inventive, star-powered comedy that still knows how to build a gag, it remains an easy watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
lauren (2.5★) · 2598 likes
why do all dads think this is the epitome of humor
Graeme (3★) · 1541 likes
Incels: The Movie
SilentDawn (5★) · 1380 likes
97
A masterpiece. A goofy, glorious comedy about despicable men projecting their fantasies onto a woman who sees only the best in their performative actions. Nonstop classic gross-out gags, but honest above all - a layer of sweetness beneath stunts and jokes regarding gender, class, and notions of romance.
olivia muenz (1.5★) · 1317 likes
This is why men shouldn’t make movies
Tylah Marie (2★) · 1296 likes
Cameron Diaz really had to go through all of that... damn.