Directed by Andy Fickman, "Reefer Madness" is a cheeky, musical comedy adaptation of the classic 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film, released in 2005. In this one a group of parents are called into their children's school to watch an extravagant documentary about an marijuana addicted 16 year-old called Jimmy Harper, who's played by Christian Campbell. His girlfriend, Mary Lane, is played by Kristen Bell and the Lecturer is Alan Cumming.
After seeing this one has somehow a deep interest in watching the 1936 propaganda film. For everything the Lecturer is such utter crap, that one is left wondering what was exactly said in the earlier version. I found the whole movie hilarious, the acting is pretty good and the music catchy and full of rhythm.
The choreography's are exaggerated imitating the style of early musicals, with a lot of cheesy scenes between Jimmy and Mary Lane.
On the other hand there are some extremely disturbing scenes, like "Listen to Jesus, Jimmy" and the one in which Jimmy is initiated into marijuana.
Very amusing are the reactions of the parents, and the way in which the Lecturer slowly drives them into believing everything he says. If the viewer has - somehow- any doubt that this is a critic against propaganda-films, the sentence "When danger's near, exploit their fear", said by the lecturer to the viewer - speaking directly to camera - erases any doubt.
All in all a very interesting, yet disturbing musical movie. If you're into musicals then you should definitively watch it. If - on the other hand - you don't like musicals, you should probably watch something else, as "Reefer Madness" is your typical old school musical with loads of dancing and people popping up out of the blue.
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