Now that the magic of YouTube means we can watch such delights as a 25-year-old blackhead being squeezed (up close!), gross-out comedies need to up their game. Not all of them have risen to the challenge. For instance it would take an overnight search party to find a decent gag in ‘That Awkward Moment’, in which Zac Efron, Michael B Jordan and Miles Teller star as back-slappin’ bromancin’ buddies who make a pact to stay single. Under their new rules, it’s strictly verboten to see the same girl more than twice a week.
The actors – who seem to have been involved in a hideous industrial accident that’s left them with the superpower of repelling all comic timing – are spectacularly unfunny. Not realising it, poor lambs, they look pretty pleased with themselves, all doing their best Vince Vaughn smirks. Smuggest and smirkiest is Efron, who – and the literary greats will kick themselves for missing this diamond of a comedy-of-errors plot – mistakes his date for a hooker. Later in the film, Efron wonders if he should go to the funeral of the same girl’s dad, but worries: ‘If I do, then we’re dating.’ The script tries very hard with boys-on-the-toilet gags, while awkwardly and half-heartedly trying to bolt on a romcom for wives and girlfriends. But never mind the bathroom jokes: this one’s a stinker through and through.