I didn’t know why this movie was titled Slapped: The Movie, until I looked up the YouTube web series the stars created.  Before, I thought there was a Slapped: The Television Series or a Slapped: The Album that the filmmakers didn’t want to be associated with.  But, I still don’t understand why Slapped: The Movie is two hours long when this half baked, body-switching, gross-out comedy has barely enough juice to fuel a 22-minute sitcom.

The film’s writers, Alex Magaña and Matt Lowe, have been inspired though.  Following the typical tropes of a body-switching fantasy between two opposite personalities, Magaña and Lowe don’t waste any time turning the film’s protagonists from immature buddies to juvenile enemies.  As soon as they swap lives after being slapped by a homeless man named Magic Mike, Alex (played by Magaña) and Matt (played by Lowe) take out their frustrations with the other by deliberately abusing their new body.  There’s no remorse but, then again, these two dense characters wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.  These slackers are played with childish gusto by Magaña and Lowe, getting themselves carried away with the lack of morals and control this film clearly relishes in.

However, the entire movie is chock-full of the most graphically profane dialogue and sex-related humour you’ll ever endure.  Semen is referred to so often that you would think the filmmakers are campaigning for the bodily fluid to earn award buzz.  It’s joked about, ingested, spilt, smeared – just about everything you can think of except for its primary function.  The sheer number of derogatory terms, curse words and slang throughout the film suggest that the movie is in competition for some sort of Guinness world record for bad taste, or they’re trying real hard to impress a group of elementary school students.

Slapped: The Movie is a void;  free of comedy, decency, or any human response.  Juvenile buddy comedies, even if the jokes are duds, can work if the actors have strong chemistry.  Somehow, Magaña and Lowe (who, I assume, are pals in real life) have the on-screen compatibility of strangers in an elevator.  When these actors are having to impersonate the other, its a roast that never feels authentic;  like they’re too afraid to cut deep with their mimicking.  The sub-plots Alex and Matt face are padded to an exhausting degree, and the characters never seem too worried about the conflicts this literal out-of-body experience causes.  For two hours, Alex and Matt shuffle around saying nasty things, as their forgiving supporting cast smiles-and-nods their way through their screen time.

Slapped: The Movie isn’t so much “a movie” than it is an incompetent lark between friends.  The audience is simply an afterthought.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie