“Incoming” (2024) Review

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The one-wild-night comedy premise requires a certain level of courage, energy, and wit to be fun. It’s also a sub-genre that tends to adhere to the youth of the era, where Gen-X had Adventures in Babysitting while Millenials had Superbad. Incoming doesn’t stack up to that same level of wildness, but it makes an earnest attempt and has enough faith in its gags of drunk teachers and cars soiled with poop.

For a film trying to appeal to Gen-Alpha reaching the age of drug and drink, this is a fairly familiar tale. A collective of underdogs are trying to find a way to prove themselves as they enter high school. Benj (Mason Thames) hopes to make a name for himself and gain a girlfriend, but his hopes fade fast on the first day of school. He needs some emergency coolness. A house party at a rich kid’s house might just be his ticket to confessing his love for his crush, Bailey (Isabella Ferreira).

The other friends in this group have different goals for the night. The rich-kid Koosh (Bardia Seiri) wants to use his house’s fancy tech and luxuries to stage a meet-cute with his crush, which thankfully spectacularly fails him. The geeky duo of Eddie (Ramon Reed) and Connor (Raphael Alejandro) don’t end up going to the party but have their wild adventure with stealing the car of Eddie’s step-dad and accidentally picking up a drunk high schooler who shits all over the back seat. While these scenes are not all that original, they are approached in a manner that doesn’t feel as postmodern on the sub-genre or its tropes. There’s still some commentary on the nature of meet-cutes, but never a Ferris Bluer’s Day Off reference for the joyriding.

The adults offering support comedy do an admirable job for their roles, playing them up with a decent dose of absurdity. Kaitlin Olson has the right amount of bluster as Benj’s mom, getting furious over her kids taking drugs and complaining about their physical features. Kim Hawthorne has the right level of stern as the school principal to ground the comedy. And then there’s Bobby Cannavale as the science teacher stealing the show. He crashes the party as a desperate dude who gets drunk and high while still teaching his students about the science behind flammable drinks and the perfect bong. His character is bound for a firing, but he’s still a charmer until the end of the night.

Incoming gets a passing grade for a teen-party comedy. It ambles around in its mess of drugs, booze, sex, and bodily fluids for humor, but manages to find a few laughs here and there. There’s also a balance of the absurd and the relatable to make the film more enduring beyond a series of slapstick antics and wild-night rampages. It’s a film that can have something as silly as Benj declaring his love through song, but still be laughed at by the entire school for such a display. It’s no Superbad, but it’s not super bad either.