‘Kusina Kings’ review: Needs more spice

Oggs Cruz

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

‘Kusina Kings’ review: Needs more spice
The film’s sense of humor doesn’t really require a lot of thinking

Victor Villanueva’s Kusina Kings is an inconsistent comedy. It takes a while before it gets its footing. When it does, and when it takes its conceit to the absolute brink of good taste, it actually can be very hilarious.

Best buddies

Kusina Kings is about best buddies Benjie (Empoy Marquez) and Ronnie (Zanjoe Marudo) wanting their restaurant to succeed.

After a dismal opening and a series of unfortunate events, Benjie is forced to bet his restaurant against archrival Gian (Ryan Bang) in a cooking competition. However, a freak accident causes Benjie to be in a coma, with only his spirit guiding Ronnie, who isn’t particularly very good in the kitchen, to win for the sake of their eatery.

There are plenty of diversions to unnecessarily fatten the storyline. There’s a bit of romance involving Ronnie’s infatuation with Benjie’s surprisingly gorgeous sister, Jenny (Nathalie Hart). Benjie is also given a chance at a love story with Baby Girl (Maxine Medina).

The film attempts to have it all –  seething rivalries, supernatural intercessions, droll romances and food feuds. What it successfully achieves however is far fewer than its ambitions.

RIVAL. The duo faces their rival Gian (Ryan Bang) in a cooking contest.

The overstuffed plot is but a shell for its never-ending gags.

However, if its plot is really rather simple if all its needless elements are discarded, its comedy is even simpler. The film’s sense of humor doesn’t really require a lot of thinking.

Villanueva makes use of a collection of visual gags, puns, punchlines, slapstick, and pop culture references to earn for his film some chuckles. It’s really a hit-or-miss affair, with the really outrageous hits being dwarfed by the very plenty misses.

Wicked genius

This isn’t to say that Kusina Kings is a waste of time.

There are still traces of the wicked genius of Victor Villanueva amid the film’s preoccupation with safe and sanitary humor. In fact, it is almost as if the film is conscious of its own corniness. There is a certain sense of sarcasm in the way the film pushes the boundaries of how absolutely inane a joke or how lewd a visual gag can be.

The film sometimes feels quite mischievous and impish despite being stifled by the studio formula that strictly governs its gags. Clearly, the biggest problem of Kusina Kings is that it doesn’t maximize its conceit, preferring to source its comedy from everything that has been done before rather than being truly naughty and irreverent.

The film simply needs more spice.

It helps that Marquez bridges most of the gaps between the jokes that fall flat and the film’s desire to just keep on churning out gags, whatever their quality. His appeal as a comedian is that he’s capable of converting the most asinine of punchlines to something extremely funny by a clever nuance in his delivery that connects the joke to his brand of self-deprecation.

Marudo, an actor whose comedic skills are underutilized, is very good here. The rapport between Marquez and Marudo makes the film’s many shortcomings more tolerable.

HELP. Ronnie (Zanjoe) tries to convince Benjie (Empoy) to help him.

Entertaining enough

The shortcomings of Kusina Kings are obvious and abundant. There are just too many missed opportunities to make one wonder what it could have been had Villanueva unleashed the same audaciousness he did with Patay na si Hesus (2016).

As it is, however, it is entertaining enough to be a momentary diversion. But it’s a meal that won’t necessarily have you craving for more.  – Rappler.com

 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ Tirad Pass.

Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. 

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!