Meatballs 4

In wrapping up my look back at the Meatballs franchise we come to the final installment, 1992's direct to video release Meatballs 4.

Meatballs 4 basically has the same premise as Meatballs II. Summer camp owner Neil Peterson, David Lynch regular Jack Nance, stands to lose his camp to rival camp owner Monica Shavetts, Superman II's Sarah Douglas. The two make a wager, whatever camp wins the big water skiing competition at the end of summer gets both camps. See, just like Meatballs II, except it's skiing instead of boxing. Neil decides to bring in a ringer, former camp counselor and skiing pro Ricky Wade, Corey Feldman, aka the Feld-dog.

This was originally going to be a comedy/drama called Happy Campers, not to be confused with the smart Daniel Waters film of the same name. But the filmmakers decided they could probably sell more videos if it had the Meatballs title. I like that they gave it the number 4 instead of the Roman numeral like the other sequels opted to do. There's nothing pretentious about this film. It's just a mindless teen sex comedy.

Even though it's not directly connected to the original, I like it a lot more than Meatballs III. Feldman is pretty obnoxious, even though he throws in some funny jabs at his career. Nance is good as always, and it's nice to see him not acting odd, well less odd than normal.

Not a great movie, but if you're in the mood for a silly boobfest you could do a lot worse than Meatballs 4.

It's available on dvd.