“Theater Camp”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, is a familiar type of comedy which could be improved here and there in my trivial opinion. While it is apparent that the main cast members of the film are apparently having a fun together on the screen, the story and characters could go further for more humor and insanity, and we can only get the glimpses of that possibility from time to time without entertained enough on the whole.

At the beginning, we are introduced to a little summer theater camp named “AdirondActs”. As its another camp season is coming, Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), who has run the camp for many years despite its considerable financial difficulties, is eager to have another good and productive time with those enthusiastic kids willing to take more chance with acting and singing, but, alas, she unfortunately becomes comatose due when she is watching a little school musical production, and the management of her camp is subsequently handed to her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro), an entrepreneur wannabe who is apparently quite incompetent from his very first appearance.

Anyway, the teaching staff members of the camp, who have irresponsibly been downsized by Troy, try to do their best as before despite the glaring absence of their dear leader. Amos Klobuchar (Ben Platt) and his longtime professional partner Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) continue to work on their latest musical production for those kids to come to the camp, but, alas, they still do not have any story or song yet even when the first day of the summer season begins. While Glenn Winthrop (Noah Galvin), who is a stage technician, is ready to teach anything to the kids under his charge, Janet Walch (Ayo Edebiri), who has just been hired by Troy, actually does not know anything about teaching how to act, but she manages to get away with that while supposedly encouraging her students in one way or another.

Not so surprisingly, things gradually get out of control day by day. In addition to Troy’s frequent incidents of mismanagement, the camp is threatened more by a local bank ready for the foreclosure of the camp at any point, and Troy is later approached by a representative from some well-known financial company which has already acquired a more successful theater camp near to AdirondACTS. In case of the teaching staff members of AdirondACTS, they often stumble a lot while their students actually turn out to be more talented and knowledgeable, and we are not so surprised to know that most of these teachers have been stuck with the camp for a long time since they came there as students.

Now this looks like a fairly solid setup with rich comic possibility, but, the screenplay by directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman and their co-writers/co-producers Noah Galvin and Ben Platt, which is based on the 2020 short film of the same name, feels rather flat and half-faked in case of story and character development at times. While there are a number of little amusing moments to be appreciated by theatergoers, they do not gel together enough together to generate constant comic momentum to hold our attention, and the mockumentary storytelling approach of the film also feels unnecessary and distracting without contributing that much to the story or the characters.

The biggest flaw of the movie is the under-development of many of its main characters, and that is quite evident especially in case of Amos and Rebecca-Dine, who are incidentally the least interesting characters in the story. Although Platt, who looks much less awkward compared to what I saw from the trailer of “Dear Evan Hansen” (2021) mainly because he is old enough to play a dead-end teacher, and Gordon, who recently played a supporting character in acclaimed TV comedy series “The Bear”, are a fairly competent comic duo, they should have brought more humor and depth to their characters and the subplot between their characters, and they are frequently overshadowed by the more colorful main cast members of the film as a result.

The other main cast members are also mostly stuck with their broad caricature roles, but they diligently fill their respective spots as much they can. While Galvin has his own moment to shine during the expected big musical finale decorated with lots of deliberately crummy songs, Jimmy Tatro, Caroline Aaron, Nathan Lee Graham, and Owen Thiele leave some impression despite their thankless supporting parts, and Ayo Edebiri, who incidentally appeared along with Gordon in “The Bears”, is unfortunately under-utilized here compared to her more interesting comic performance in Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” (2023).

It can be said that the real stars of the film are a bunch of young performers including Alan Kim of “Minari” (2020), and they all never hit any false note throughout the film while freely wielding their natural talent across the screen. As a matter of fact, the movie could delve more into their amusingly intense dedication to their artistic passion, and that brings me back to what Ebert once said about the ever-amazing acting of many child performers out there: “Maybe we are all born as great actors, but after a certain age, most of us morph into bad ones.”

In conclusion, “Theater Camp” is not a total waste of time at least, but I just felt mildly amused during my viewing without having enough laugh for recommendation. I surely recognize the considerable efforts put on and behind the screen, but I still think it could be better for richer laughs for us, and I am already ready to search for something funnier than this.