Featured DVD Review: Fred 3: Camp Fred

December 4, 2012

Fred 3: Camp Fred - Buy from Amazon

At one time, Lucas Cruikshank had the most popular channel on YouTube and his character, Fred, was seen countless times. It was so popular, that not only did the character get his own movie, but that movie has turned into a trilogy. I'm not in the target audience for Fred, but is Fred 3: Camp Fred better or worse than Fred 2, which I previously reviewed.

The Movie

The film begins and Fred is excited for a number of reasons. Firstly, he's Fred and excited is his normal state. Secondly, it's the last day of school and summer vacation is about to start. Not only is it the last day of school, but this summer, Fred is going to the coolest summer camp, ever. Unfortunately, that camp is too expensive, so Fred's Mother is sending him to Camp Iwannapeepee. (Yes, they run that joke into the ground really fast.) Camp Iwannapeepee is a low rent summer camp run by Tom Arnold and it has nothing Fred was looking forward to doing while at summer camp. No water slides, no horses (okay, there's one three-legged horse), no s'mores, no hot dogs, nothing. There's one thing the camp has going for it, Nurse Oksana, who is a terrible nurse, but who is gorgeous, so no one seems to mind.

The more Fred learns about the place, the more he hates it. He does become friends with his fellow Cabin 13 campers: Magoo (Joey Bragg); Chatter (Matthew Scott Miller); Spoon (Leah Lewis); and Dig (Adrian Kali Turner). However, that's not enough to make him want to stay. Even when his four friends sing up for the Summer Camp Games, Fred is not swayed. He's not swayed, until he learns his nemesis, Kevin, goes to Camp Superior. Now Fred is determined to win the Summer Camp Games.

You can probably guess what happens from there. In fact, I could have summed up the plot as, "Fred wants to go to a fancy camp, but ends up at a cheap camp. The two camps have an annual competition." Even that two sentence plot summary would have been enough to guess how the film ends. This is not a movie that thrives on originality. Unfortunately, this film doesn't have much else to turn to. Because Fred is at camp, he's the only character from the first two movies to really have any significant screen time. This means we have to introduce a lot of new characters, almost none of which get enough character development to matter. The plot isn't as strong as it was last time around. Many of the jokes fall flat. The opening musical number goes on after it has run out of steam. The end musical number was a lot better, on the other hand, and there were scattered jokes here and there that hit their mark. The hit to miss ration was better in the previous film.

The Extras

There are a trio of featurettes, starting with an eight-minute making of featurette. Up next is a four-minute featurette on the opening musical number. Finally, there is a two-minute featurette on Lucas Cruikshank's career.

The Verdict

Overall, I still think Fred 2 is the best of the three movies. Fred 3: Camp Fred is too predictable and doesn't have enough character development to make it engaging. On the other hand, it's about average for the franchise, so if you bought the first two DVDs, then spending $9 for this one isn't a bad deal. Also coming out this week is a trilogy box set.


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Filed under: Video Review, Tom Arnold, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Madison Riley, Lucas Cruikshank, Jake Weary