House Party (2023)
House Party is the entertaining remake of the classic 1990 Kid n' Play comedy.
This time around the story centers around Kevin and Damon, who work as cleaners, but are about to be fired for being high on the job too often.
When they find out that their final cleaning gig is the opulent mansion of living basketball legend LeBron James, they decide to organize a surprise House Party to which they invite his very famous circle of friends.
Lebron himself is abroad with his family for a few weeks, so he won't notice anything. They think.
The premise of the film may not be very believable, but House Party is still kinda fun. Leading actors Jacob Latimore and Tosin Cole have good chemistry and director Calmatic managed to rustle up an impressive amount of stars for smaller roles, from Kid Cudi to Mya, and from Big Sean to LeBron himself, who is also one of the producers of the film.
The original House Party, written and directed by Reginald Hudlin, kept it real and grew into an ode to growing up in Los Angeles. This new one, written by Stephen Glover and Jamal Olori, aims to go much bigger and is set in a changing world, in which everything revolves around social media, influencers and big stars.
Kevin and Damon want to make as much money as possible with their House Party, so they can launch themselves as promoters of big parties. Damon is the irresponsible party animal of the two, while single father Kevin wants to take care of his son and not end up in jail.
This causes tension between the two, although it is clear that their friendship will prevail, with some help from Karen Obilom who shines as Kevin's love interest Venus.
Calmatic, who previously made video clips, keeps the movie buzzing along (he will now directe a remake of another nineties classic: White Men Can't Jump).
For a comedy there is a shortage of really laugh out loud jokes, but there is enough to chuckle at and the film does contain some nice twists.
There’s even a subplot involving the theft of LeBron’s Humanitarian Award ring, which turns this House Party into a horror comedy for a while.