Melissa McCarthy’s 2108 dramedy Life of the Party is suddenly very popular after it was added to HBO Max this week. The film was added to the streaming platform’s Latin American markets and quickly garnered views. Yesterday, Life of the Party was the second most popular movie on the platform globally, FlixPatrol reports.
The popularity continued into this morning, as Life of the Party remains the second most popular film on HBO Max, trailing Batman: The Killing Joke for the platform’s top spot. The Matrix, coming off the hype of a trailer for a sequel movie, ranks third.
McCarthy plays a divorcee who goes back to college to finish her degree. At the same time, her daughter, played by Molly Gordon, is finishing her senior year at the same university. In a semester full of shenanigans, McCarthy finds herself hopping up at frat parties and earning the respect of even the most exclusive popular girls at the school. And in a plot filled with umpteen contrivances, the star-studded, cameo-filled romp ends after Christina Aguilera (as herself) saves the day.
The release underperformed at the box office, no doubt in some small part due to Avengers: Infinity War. Critical and audience reception was less forgiving, amounting to nothing more than a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer and 46 on Metacritic’s Metascore.