A Review of “Friends: The Reunion (2021)”

 

I love Friends when I was younger and was rooting for a reunion episode. Well, they finally did it but instead of a time skip episode, we instead got a reunion of the actors reminiscing about their time on Friends. I was very disappointed by that as I really wanted to see where the characters I loved were up to. Nonetheless, I was still interested to watch it just because we haven’t seen the actors together in a long time as well. So was it a happy reunion or unneeded?

Firstly, I enjoyed watching the actors returning to the set and meeting each other again. Seeing them interact again, you could still see that they all still retain the chemistry between each other. It was interesting and fun to watch them just talk about their time on Friends such as their first meeting, their favourite moments and things that happened due to their fame. They also do some re-enactments of some great moments from the show and this was nice to watch as we see them easily bring these characters back to life again.

I also really loved seeing them react to some clips from Friends as it was intriguing to know what they thought of it. It was also quite a blast to see them react to the bloopers as well, although I wish they included some more bloopers as well. They also reacted to that time Matt LeBlanc broke his shoulder on one episode which was just such a great moment. They also do a quiz show with the cast to see their knowledge on Friends which was hilarious. There are also some very interesting interviews from the creators of Friends about how the show came into being and why these actors were cast.

However, my biggest issue with this special has got to be the atrocious editing. It constantly switches from actors reminiscing to talk show to documentary to quiz repeatedly. It’s clunky and very messy. It’s very jarring and annoying as it never seems to stay focus on one thing for long enough. It baffles me why it had to be a 100-minute special when they could’ve done episodes that focus on different things. They could have one episode of Friends cast reminiscing, one episode about how Friends was made and another episode being a quiz with the cast etc. The choice of having it all crammed together is a terrible choice and it doesn’t work.

There is a talk show segment with James Corden and I hated it. James Corden feels too hyperactive and obnoxious with his talk show segment taking too long or just being too awkward for my liking. I actually wouldn’t have minded if they got rid of his segment entirely. There are some moments where it shows how Friends impacted non-celebrity people which was just too cringy and distracting. Some celebrities come in as well such as David Beckham and Kit Harrington where they talk about their favourite episode. However, I could give no care whatsoever to it and wanted them to go back to the Friends themselves. There is also a very weird segment that appears randomly with Lisa Kudrow singing “Smelly Cat” again which was great but then gets ruined by Lady Gaga and a random choir which was pointless additions. Lisa says it herself “I think the song was better when I sang it alone”.

Overall, when they let the Friends cast do their thing and the focus is just on them, it’s great. When it keeps derailing to something else, it’s bad. If you’re a huge Friends fan then you definitely need to watch this. However, if you’re just someone who knows about Friends and might like documentaries or something, then I can guarantee that there is not much worth watching this as you won’t gain much. It might not be the reunion I wanted but there was some enjoyment to be had for sure.