New Kids Nitro

"New Kids Nitro" is clearly a movie that had to strike while the iron was still hot. The brief "New Kids"-sketches were an instant hit within Dutch pop culture and the first "New Kids"-movie was also well-received, so it makes sense that they wanted to squeeze every drop from this hype. But still, the movie could have used some more time and effort. There's barely any new material in this movie, just a lot of rehashed stuff from the previous outings. People still suddenly die out of nowhere, they still get in fights for the vaguest of reasons and everyone's still over-the-top trashy, but it's just not as funny as it used to be. How many times can you see a person get hit by a car and still laugh? Dozens of times obviously, but they're still pushing it. Granted, the makers are very aware of this and break the fourth wall on numerous occasions to mention exactly what I just said, but to be honest I don't really care for that. In-jokes are often just a lazy way of "fixing" your movie's shortcomings (take notes, Kevin Smith), even if some of this stuff is indeed pretty funny. My biggest pet peeve however is that they don't do enough with the one interesting new idea in the movie: the delightfully nonsensical addition of zombies. You sort of expect the last half hour of this movie to play out as an if possible even dryer version of "Shaun Of The Dead", but the final act is totally disappointing. Don't get me wrong, you'll laugh a lot during this movie, but you'll laugh at gags you've seen a hundred times before. Only for the die-hard fans.