Y’all, I just did the unthinkable. Over the past week, I re-watched ENTOURAGE, all 8 seasons, in its entirety. I did this because 1) I wanted to write an article pointing out all of the cameos/Easter eggs in the film and 2) because I must’ve blocked out what an incredibly disgusting series it is. I guess I was in a different place in my life when I first watched the show, because this re-watch went from entertaining to laborious. Obviously, I enjoy the behind-the-scenes, semi-satirical look at Hollywood, the celebrity cameos, and Ari’s yelling. But as I watched 38.5 hours of content, the entertainment value wore off pretty quickly.
Of course, I remembered the misogyny, the partying, the… boobs. But I remembered it being so ridiculous it was entertaining (and probably not that off from how famous actors really do live). How young and naïve I was. Even if that is how the rich and famous live, it’s not what I really want to see for entertainment. I was excited to see my favorite female characters (Dana Gordon, Shauna and Babs) give the boys a taste of their own medicine. But what I didn’t remember was how one-note these female characters are on the show. You either have the harpy (Melissa Gold), the badass business woman (Babs, Shauna, Dana Gordon, and Amanda Daniels), the psycho (Ashley, the guys’ random hookups), or the GONE GIRL defined, “cool girl” (Sloan). I know this is a show about the men and not the women blah blah blah, but come on. We couldn’t have at least one fully formed female character? And in the movie, these female characters are written even worse, with only a few lines to share between all of them. Babs wasn’t even in the movie! Wtf?!
Unfortunately, the female issue isn’t the only problem I have with ENTOURAGE. It has a major Vince problem. The whole premise of the show centers on a “handsome”, charismatic, talented movie star and his crew of loyal friends. But the Vince they show us onscreen is not that guy. Nowhere in the series, in all of the clips of movies are shown, does he prove he is a great actor. The same goes for the ENTOURAGE film, which now casts Vince as the director/star of the film HYDE. When we are shown a clip of HYDE it looks TERRIBLE! How are we then to believe, later on in the movie, that HYDE is an Awards-caliber film? Perhaps they should’ve just not showed us any clips of the film and left it to our imagination.
Sadly, the ENTOURAGE movie, which picks up about 9 days after the series finale and then jumps forward 8 months, is basically a 105 minute episode of the TV show, except fan-favorite supporting characters are wasted/nonexistent, the entourage boys are caricatures of themselves (especially Drama), and a lot of the narrative from the TV show was ignored. Fans of the series will probably be happy to see the boys back, but I’ll be interested to hear what they say about the exaggerated characters and the fact that major plot points from the series (e.g. Vince’s bad reputation after his drug problem) were glossed over. You can go see this film having not seen an episode of the TV show, but I don’t know why you would want to.
Oh, and there is a credit scene, so make sure you stick around for that.
My Review: D+
