OK, I’ll admit it. I wasn’t expecting Ricky Stanicky to be that good. Not that I ventured to watch this new Prime Video release to trash the piece; that’s no fun, and no critic should seek out that kind of villainy, but I guess I didn’t hold much hope. After all, here was a movie that featured star John Cena (Vacation Friends) on the poster dressed as an oversized Britany Spears in full “Oops I Did it Again” garb and a warning that this was an “R-rated comedy.” Could you blame anyone who set their bar on the low rung for the film to find one honest laugh, let alone wind up with a relatively decent message about friendship and maturity?

Serving as both a whimsical homage to the irreverent comedies he and his brother Bobby kickstarted their career with (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary) and a nod to the evolving terrain of a genre growing more inclusive, director Peter Farrelly has returned to familiar territory with this boys-behaving-badly flick. It begins as a three-alarm dumpster fire of juvenile yucks but cools down considerably into a surprisingly warm comedy more interested in exploring the awkward moments that arise after a laugh dies down.

Movies surrounding imaginary friends have been around forever. Still, I’m scratching my head, trying to think if there’s been one where said friend was a fabrication created to be a scapegoat for all the trouble a trio of friends get into when they are young. As they become adults and find themselves in relationships, their childhood creation lives on, assuming an almost mythical quality in the lives of their family and friends. While initially dreamt up to evade punishment, Ricky Stanicky becomes an easy-out for the men when ‘adulting’ becomes too much for them.

Scoring last-minute tickets to a concert in Atlantic City, Dean (Zac Efron, We Are Your Friends), Wes (Jermaine Fowler, The Blackening), and JT (Andrew Santino, Scrambled) get out of helping out at JT’s wife’s baby shower by having “Ricky” place a desperate call to his friends asking them to meet him that weekend due to a health scare. The understanding partners of the men encourage them to go, never knowing they have fallen for another ruse. With JT’s pregnant wife (Anja Savcic) and Dean’s television reporter girlfriend (Lex Scott Davis) holding down the fort, the men take off for another boy’s weekend, not knowing their group is about to get a little bigger.

While keeping the party going late into the night, the men meet Rod, a low-rent actor currently working a raunchy gig as a nightclub singer, changing the lyrics of PG-13 popular songs to be X-rated tributes to self-love. Initially trying to score free drinks off the guys, Rod leaves his card with Dean, who pockets it to appease the overeager performer. When the men return home to unexpected chaos, their hands are forced to either produce Ricky Stanicky live in the flesh or fess up to the truth about their years of lies. It’s then that Dean remembers Rod’s card and offers him a way out of Atlantic City, but can Rod catch up on the multiple threads that make up Ricky Stanicky to be convincing?

The first half hour of Ricky Stanicky is splashing about in a shallow wading pool of skeevy humor and setting up Efron and his gang to be real d-bags in how they treat their respective partners.  All seem to be invested in their relationships to a point (Fowler’s character is gay, and it’s such a non-issue that we only find it out when his boyfriend is suddenly a part of the movie) but prefer the freedom Ricky offers them. The convenient alibi for their mischievous exploits spans two decades. While the men keep a rigorous “bible” to make sure they aren’t giving conflicting information, we find out that on occasions, they’ve all pulled out the Ricky Stanicky card as an individual rather than the agreed upon group usage.

Proving to have the screen charisma to be a movie mainstay for the foreseeable future, Zac Efron serves the film well as its anchor amidst absurdity. While the film is about the trio, it’s secretly about Dean’s creation of Ricky, not out of necessity but survival. Efron was incredible in December’s The Iron Claw (I’m still disappointed he and the film didn’t get more attention from awards and critics groups), and while you could look at this comedy as a step down from that prestige, don’t overlook that there’s something more to it than a series of masturbation jokes from unscrupulous male role models. Efron fully embraces the film’s light tone with contagious enthusiasm and brings the rest of the cast along with him when things turn serious.

Giving Efron solid support is co-star Cena, who is slowly working his magic on me. I wasn’t impressed at first with the wrestler-turned-actor, but his consistent willingness to go the distance for a joke is admirable. The comedy here isn’t always razor-sharp; you may hate yourself for laughing so quickly at Rod’s antics. Yet, it’s undeniably funny and an excellent palate cleanser from the stodgy trophy bait and studio leftovers we’ve been eating since mid-December. I also enjoyed Fowler and Santino, even though I didn’t buy in a million years that any of these men would be friends with one another since childhood. Another nice Farrelly (Green Book) touch is bold casting choices that shatter the mold of what a traditional ensemble or bit player looks like. Farrelly’s commitment to an inclusive set is evident, providing a refreshing stage for actors who seldom see themselves represented in these narratives.

With Ricky Stanicky, Farrelly reteams with Efron, who he worked with on The Greatest Beer Run Ever, a film I forget even existed. If their previous film evoked a certain kind of nostalgic charm for the road trip comedy, Ricky Stanicky gives audiences a chance to glance back and remember what films like Old School, The Hangover, and even Efron’s That Awkward Moment brought to the table. While the film may lack a certain specificity, leading its third-act twists to land with a creakiness, it was amusing to see how much of it worked. Those pooh-pooh-ing its ribald tone and cavalier attitude toward duplicity might want to glance over their shelf of films and hide a few titles from the ’90s and ’00s, which are now severely problematic.

In comedy, I only ask for simple consideration for the funny bone and equal opportunity to skewer across party lines.  It’s OK for Efron, Fowler, and Santino to start where they do because, like all good tales of redemption, you must begin with a low point to clear a high bar by the finale. Defying the doubtful expectations I had going in, Ricky Stanicky had me frequently LOL-ing at the sheer silliness of it all while applauding its inclusive casting and, in the case of Cena, being awed by the performances.