Like Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Pizza Movie is this generation’s stoner comedy where munchies motivate a wacky night of hijinks. For what seems like low stakes that could easily fall back on the surreal absurdity of a drug trip, there’s a refreshing confidence in how this film walks its wild-night scenario. Perhaps such a movie is funnier when under the influence, but there are enough smiles to enjoy this dumb little comedy while sober.

There’s extra effort placed on the loser college roommates, Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone). There’s a drift between them as they consider housing for the next semester, but a solidarity in their plight that has made them a target on campus. Life sucks so much that they decide to take a gamble on some left-behind drugs discovered in their dorm room ceiling. Unfortunately, they don’t listen to all the instructions by the drug’s developer, Frankie (Sarah Sherman). There are many stages to the drug, but the bottom line is that if pizza is not consumed in a certain amount of time, they’re in for a bad trip. And while the pizza is ordered and waiting for them in the dorm lobby, getting downstairs is not an easy adventure when you’re incredibly high and harassed by your peers.

With the drug’s effects presented in stages as though it were a spell, there’s a control to the random nature of the many trippy hallucinations. The mind-altering sequences don’t settle on cartoonish sights of wild, nightmarish designs, but delve into the realm of time loops, timeline alterations, and body-switching. How does that work with a drug? Honestly, who cares? It’s hilarious and crafts unpredictable moments of a butterfly voiced by Daniel Radcliffe doing combat with an obnoxious RA villain played by Jack Martin. The many flavors of trippiness never dull, and there’s, thankfully, a more meaningful tale of friendship on top of all this outlandish humor, heavy on visual effects.

At the heart of the film is a cute bond between Jack, Montgomery, and their distant friend on the inside, Lizzy (Lulu Wilson). All three of them endure the drug’s journey while coming to terms with the superficial social boundaries they built for college. They have a solid dynamic between them and can deliver perfectly timed punchlines for gags involving exploding heads and fusing their bodies together like Voltron. They’re the dorks so cute you want them to keep being dorks and root for them to eat that pizza delivered by the frantically insecure Snackatron 3000 (voiced by Bobby Moynihan).

Pizza Movie tastes pretty good for a sub-genre that could’ve gone moldy in the comedy fridge. It never felt like a stale leftover of the likes of Cheech & Chong or Harold & Kumar, finding its own groove of what to do with its outsider characters going on a ludicrous drug trip. There are no belly laughs or dramatic groundbreakings compared to its competition, but, like a good dose of THC, there’s a nice vibe that always brought a smile to my face. The next generation of stoner comedies is in good hands if this is what they’re baking, using fresher ingredients than those left behind by their burnt-out elders.

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