Ricky Stanicky (2024)

Ricky Stanicky 🤠

After his highly acclaimed performance in A24’s The Iron Claw, Zac Efron returns to the small screen with Dumb & Dumber director Peter Farrelly in Prime Video’s latest R-rated comedy, Ricky Stanicky.  

This story follows three lifelong friends (Zac Efron, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino) who, after years of hyping up their scapegoat overseas pal Ricky Stanicky, are now being forced to introduce him to their families at one of their newborn sons upcoming circumcision, but the thing is, he doesn’t exist.  

So they call upon Rock Hard Rod (John Cena), a X-rated Rock ‘n’ Roll impersonator they met on a random weekend in Atlantic City, to play the role of their imaginary friend, which goes surprisingly well until it doesn’t.  

Women brought back comedy in a major way last year, providing some much-needed juice to what had become a stale and lifeless genre.  

This may not be the laugh-out-loud comedy I was hoping for, but it continues the comeback of the 2000’s feeling raunchy comedies with an incredibly committed John Cena performance, which I think anyone with a sense of humour will get a kick out of. It honestly may be Cena’s best performance to date, with a wildly outlandish character that allows the professional wrestler turned actor to show off an impressive amount of range. 

And as forgettable as the story is as a whole, it still manages to have some iconic scenes that audiences will be calling back for years to come. If anything, this movie has infinite meme potential.

For me, this was a chuckle-filled, mindless Sunday type of watch about boys being boys, with their boys—and the stupidity that ensues because of it.  

Enjoy!  

6/10 🍿 🎥 

Runtime: 1hr48mins

Where: Now Streaming on Prime Video  

Ricky Stanicky Review (2024) The Richmond Reviewer - March 6th, 2024.

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