Zac Efron's EDM Movie Box Office Flop Has Won No Friends

With Straight Outta Compton topping the box office in the US three weeks running now — matching Jurassic World as the only other movie to lead the box office for three consecutive weeks this summer — we thought it only apt to look at what people are saying about the film on the other end of the spectrum. Zac Efron-led, Max (Catfish) Joseph-directed We Are Your Friends was an unbelievable flop, opening with just USD $1.8 million on 2,300 screens across the States, the worst opening weekend ever for a Hollywood studio movie released in so many theatres.

With 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, let's take a look at what critics are saying about the dance music drama, shall we?

about zac efron (Cole carter)

•  "...place him in a dead zone that is full of bro signifiers and empty of actual friendship, leaning on his tendency to stare blankly instead of emoting." (AV Club)
• "It became clear that Zac Efron was going to wear headphones for the entire movie – both on his head, and around his neck. This is to signify that he is a DJ." (Popbitch)
• "Why do film-makers insist that Zac Efron must have regular shirtless epiphanies in the shower?" (The Times) 

about the storyline

• "Neither Cole nor the movie cares to elaborate any further on what makes his music (or, really, most music) particularly good or bad." (AV Club)
• "By the time Cole reaches a point of self-reflection, even self-criticism, it’s too late; the vast emptiness at the movie’s center has become unintentionally funny." (AV Club)
• "...spouts an unutterable sack of crap about how to control the crowd’s actual heartbeats and even their CIRCULATORY SYSTEMS. This is demonstrated with X-Rays, because why the fuck not? Then we’re told that the perfect bpm for any party is 128, which discredits a million and one genres of dance music, but who cares?" (Popbitch)
• "Cole and his friends take jobs with a shady mortgage hustler, Paige (Jon Bernthal), which initially points toward establishing a competing mentor figure for Cole. It's an intriguing idea that the screenplay never fully works into the overall story, so those scenes wind up feeling like a separate movie." (LA Times)
• "Did you ever doubt that Cole would hook up with Sophie (Emily Ratajowski) or that a major character would die or that Cole would start listening to what the real world is trying to tell him? … The clichés tick off with metronomic regularity." (Rolling Stone)

about the other cast

• Emily "Ratajowski has a flat, almost affectless voice, from which the movie demands little; the conversations between her and Efron are astonishingly low content, even for people who have their big romantic breakthrough while high." (AV Club)
• "...female viewers might be a tad disappointed that there isn’t a decent depiction of women in the film as anything but sexual props." (Forbes)

about the film in general 

• "The movie flashes words and graphics, trying to sound like it’s actually explaining a process instead of contradicting its own pseudo-science and pseudo-math." (AV Club)
• "It’s like it’s written and directed by someone who discovered electronic music a year ago and is desperate to tell everyone about this ‘movement’ and how ‘it’s unlike anything else’ and ‘you don’t understand, just trust me’, and ‘I already know all there is to know about this type of music so I’m going to make a horrendously misinformed film about it’ etc." (Popbitch)
• "...has little of value to say about the simple matter of DJing at a club. Or about renting an apartment with your friends, for that matter." (Forbes)
• "The movie never quite decides if it wants to be a sensitive drama of self-actualization or a playful party movie and ultimately misses the mark on both counts." (LA Times)