The Reunion

♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Four friends discuss whether they should attend their high school reunion or not. Their decision to eventually go leads to a series of life-changing realizations brought about by some of their earlier decisions in life regarding their exes. Cassanova Boggs (Enrique Gil) reunites with Ligaya (Julia Montes), the once outdoorsy girl next door turned paraplegic. Joax (Xian Lim) finds out that he fathered his ex Toyang's (Meagan Young) son. Wannabe celebrity Pat (Kean Cipriano) learns that his manang of an ex-girlfriend (Bangs Garcia) is now a sexy print ad model. Lloyd (Enchong Dee) chases his high school sweetheart Ara (Cristine Reyes) who is about to get married, taking for granted his best friend Ali (Jessy Mendiola) who has always been there for him.

This movie goes out of its way to try to make you laugh. Sometimes it succeeds. Most of the time, it fails. Either way, the attempt is so obvious that it could not help but lose its novelty. The over the top scenarios and one too many cliches guarantee a rather boring time, with some forced laughter along the way.

The movie enters surreal territory when the four guys, dressed in Avengers costumes, go into an airport and start attacking uniformed men in the midst of the stereotypical chase-the-girl-at-the-airport scene. This is not the only absurd scene in the movie. In one sequence, Janus del Prado on a bike is hit by the four's car as a result of an unnecessary chase scene. After they all get off the car to find the victim, they just could not locate him. After around half a minute, he lands on the car's dashboard followed by his bicycle soon after. While such exaggeration works at some point, most of the time it just becomes but a lousy excuse for a bad script.

The material could have been handled in a way that could have made it a good barkada flick, but its drastic attempt on screwball comedy is too tedious, and it does not help that majority of the plot points are recycled and fail to form one cohesive narrative.

The best aspect of the movie would be the soundtrack, which is composed of tunes from the Eraserheads. It is this, along with the high school reunion theme itself, that the audience would probably admire, especially those who are about to have their turn at their own high school reunions anytime soon.

Despite its many flaws, the film manages to at least have you recall your time in high school, when everything seemed to be a matter of life and death, only for you to enter adulthood and realize how trivial everything actually was.