My Review of 'Mid90s'

I've heard a ton of buzz about Mid90s since it came out. It's a movie that was written and directed by Jonah Hill. If 21 Jump Street was any indication that Jonah Hill has skills in writing a movie, then I was in for a treat with Mid90s.

Watching the trailers, Mid90s didn't look anything like 21 Jump Street though. It looked to be a more serious movie, so I didn't get around to watching it for a while. A little while later my friends started to rant and rave about this movie. My interest peaked again. Once the movie showed up on Netflix, I realized I had no more excuses and had to watch the movie.

So Mid90s is obviously based in the mid-90s, but it's also about this boy named Stevie played by Sunny Suljic. Stevie is this wide-eyed optimistic boy that is easily influenced by anything and everyone around him. I guess this is the case with a lot of kids that age.

He's growing up with a bully of an older brother and a single mother. His older brother is constantly attacking him, but he kind of asks for it as well. He idolizes his older brother and gets into trouble because of it. Soon, the bullying has taken a toll and Stevie looks for new friends to hang out with. He falls into a gang of skateboarders. This gang is a group of misfits with vastly different personalities. A bunch of hijinks takes place and you have yourself a movie.

Some of the craziness that happens actually put me on edge. It was nicely directed, and at certain parts of the movie I could feel the intensity that was about to come. They play around with some of the situations where you know something is going to happen and you start yelling at the screen because you know the characters are going to be in big trouble and you can't stop it. You have to see it all play out and it drives you nuts.

In some ways, this movie is a comedy, but for the most part this movie is a coming-of-age drama. There are a ton of situations that I recognize from the 90s that seemed totally accurate from what I remembered. You see the boys discovering who they are and change as their paths become different. They're all friends through thick and thin, but you get a sense that each of the characters will being going off in their own directions.

It's such a short movie, but they seemed to be able to cram a ton of messages into the short amount of time they were allotted. Life lessons include not knowing, taking chances, not to judge others and we are all multidimensional. You have a sense that you understand each of the character's motivations for what they're doing even though what they're doing is totally idiotic. I like it when movies have us understand where the characters come from and what they're all about.

It's a really good coming-of-age story that took place in probably one of the last times you could do some of the things that you see the characters do. There are a ton of things that happen in that movie that would make the parents' of today heads explode. It was a time of innocence and freedom. People were able to talk about taboo subjects without worrying about offending others.

Overall, I really enjoyed Mid90s. I will have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. It was extremely entertaining for me, but I don't know if it was because I grew up in the 90s era and was reminiscing about the past. I still think others that didn't grow up in that era can still really enjoy the movie because it's a coming-of-age story.