I don’t know what 2026 is trying to tell me about summer camps, but I feel like I need to go to one. I did as a kid, but apparently there’s some strong cosmic force pulling me back toward summer camp, considering Tiny Fugitives is now the fifth film I’ve seen this year that takes place at one, following Camp, Camp Rock 3, The Floaters, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. The first was a decent horror-tinged adventure about acceptance mixed with a little bit of The Craft. The second was the unfortunate third film in Disney’s long-running franchise that completely lacked audio description, despite Disney being fully capable of providing it. The third was a comedy about putting on a musical at a Jewish summer camp. The fourth technically takes place at a summer camp, but is mostly trying to capture that ‘80s slasher vibe of films like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp. Now we’re onto Johnny Knoxville hunting children down in good old-fashioned R-rated comedy hijinks.

The stars of Tiny Fugitives are really the kids, who actually feel remarkably close to the real thing in terms of how they speak. While they use adult language and profanity, it also feels realistic for their age, and they’re not consistently dropping F-bombs just for shock value. The language is simply integrated into their dialogue. Since this film has been compared to Good Boys, I think that movie was going much harder for shock value, whereas Tiny Fugitives is closer to an adult version of Heavyweights. These kids cherish their experience at summer camp because it’s where they have friends and some level of popularity, and they plan to return every summer they possibly can. But those plans seem to change for Jacob Udell, played by Benjamin Pajak, after he finds out his parents are getting divorced and he’s uncertain whether they can afford to send him back next year. So Jacob and his friends come up with the brilliant idea of invading a nearby abandoned camp and essentially moving there so they can live at camp forever.

They have an astoundingly stupid catalyst for getting themselves quarantined away from everyone else, making it easier to slip away, but what they don’t count on is Bob, played by Johnny Knoxville. Bob is the longtime camp employee they think is too slow and incompetent to actually catch them, a 50-year-old lifer who has somehow been working there for 26 years without moving particularly far up the ladder. Twenty-six years is a long time to work at a summer camp. Bob desperately wants more responsibility, and when these kids disappear, retrieving them suddenly becomes his opportunity to prove himself. He can’t exactly let a bunch of 12-year-olds vanish into the woods. And thus begins a battle of wits between a group of preteens and an aging Jackass.

I think there are two different types of summer camp people. There are the ones who think about Friday the 13th, and that’s how they identify camp, as a place where you’re probably going to be murdered by somebody wearing sporting equipment. Then there are the people who think about movies like Heavyweights or Camp Nowhere, where summer camp represents this pleasurable, liberating experience away from parents and normal life. If you’re in the latter of those two camps, and Camp Nowhere was very much your vibe growing up, Tiny Fugitives might have enough nostalgia to tire-swing you across the finish line. I did not have audio description while watching this, but I’m not entirely sure that was a huge loss in terms of the humor, unless there are some incredible visual side gags that are never vocalized or referenced.

For the most part, these kids are normal for their age range, which makes it somewhat ironic that they’re starring in an R-rated movie. Most adults who work around kids this age, have kids this age, or remember being this age probably know that this is how kids actually talk. Realistically speaking, I kept waiting for one of them to randomly drop a “six-seven” at some point in the movie. Tiny Fugitives is technically chasing the audience that used to go see raunchy comedies, but it’s not actually that raunchy. I know some have lamented that comedy has tamed itself because of political correctness, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. I think Tiny Fugitives simply wants to put more heart into the movie than you might expect from the premise.

It actually reminded me quite a bit of The Kings of Summer, the fantastic 2013 indie directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who later went on to direct Kong: Skull Island. That film featured a young Nick Robinson and a group of friends who essentially left society behind to go live in the woods over the summer, building themselves a house and attempting to become independent. It was the kind of smaller indie film that could catch attention through word of mouth in the pre-COVID era. Nowadays, everything moves to streaming so rapidly that it’s almost impossible for a movie to build that kind of theatrical momentum. Something like Tiny Fugitives needs to find its audience immediately, and it’s lucky if theaters even give it a full slate of showtimes. I heard audiences complaining that their local theaters weren’t giving Tiny Fugitives many options, which is unfortunate because it makes the film look like it limped into theaters when there’s really nothing particularly wrong with it.

My biggest issue is simply that it could have been funnier, and I would have liked more time at the beginning to fully establish the characters, their backstories, their differences, and their friendships. A lot of that feels cursory. Even the conversation surrounding Jacob’s parents’ divorce feels underdeveloped. His dad, Mark, played by Jay Baruchel, comes across as overtly immature, and there’s never really an explanation for why the divorce suddenly means that collectively between Mom and Dad, the money for summer camp is gone. There’s no mention of a job loss or some other dramatic change in income. Simply separating doesn’t mean all the money suddenly evaporates. Unless Dad plans on spending all his money on his new, hot, young wife instead of his kid, which, admittedly, he does kind of seem like the sort of oblivious individual who might do exactly that.

The young performers are the stars here. Knoxville is essentially their foil. Bob could have been played by any number of comedians and the movie probably would have come out nearly identically. Johnny Knoxville could just as easily be Kevin James or Sebastian Maniscalco. There’s nothing about the role that specifically requires Knoxville’s unique set of skills, but I’m sure he’s happy to be in movies that aren’t entirely based around his ability to be brutalized as a human being. Benjamin Pajak does a nice job anchoring the group as Jacob, while Aaron Harris as Charness, Isa Bernal Steiner as Tali, and Jai Soundar as Leon help make this feel less like a group of precocious screenwriter inventions and more like actual kids who somehow wandered into an R-rated comedy.

Ideally, I would say the target demographic for this movie is probably somewhere around the age range of the cast themselves, despite the sexual references and profanity that earned Tiny Fugitives its R rating. Parents may not necessarily want their kids hearing some of this, but let’s face it, they’re saying these words and having these conversations anyway. Especially once they’re high-school age. I’m sorry, they just are. Even if you’ve tried to shield them, they know friends whose parents aren’t trying to shield them. They have access to the internet, cell phones, social media, and everything else on their screens. There’s only so much you can possibly protect them from. If I showed this movie to a room full of 15- and 16-year-olds, I don’t think a single one of them would be shocked by anything in it.

And it’s hardly unprecedented for movies aimed directly at teenagers to carry an R rating. My generation had Varsity Blues, American Pie, and an entire generation of teen slashers. We all found ways to watch those movies anyway. I certainly wasn’t old enough to see an R-rated movie when I saw American Pie, and I didn’t see it with my parents. Kids will find a way. The only negative impact that really has is on a film like Tiny Fugitives, because teenagers can buy a ticket to something else and sneak into this, meaning the box office goes to the competition instead. Sometimes parents will buy the tickets, while other theaters won’t let kids in without the parents actually accompanying them. Either way, teenagers have encountered far worse on South Park.

So let your children experience what might be the most relatable of my five camp movies this year. As much as Disney would probably like to believe that the youth of Camp Rock 3 represents what kids are actually like, that’s a fantasy. Those are adults’ hopes and dreams about what they would like children to be. Tiny Fugitives understands that kids are weird, vulgar, impulsive, occasionally stupid, intensely loyal, and capable of treating a summer away from their parents as the most important thing that has ever happened to them.

Tiny Fugitives may have made only a tiny impact at the box office, so you may have to wait a tiny bit for it to land on your streaming platform of choice. But if you can write yourself a tiny note to remember to watch Tiny Fugitives when it does, I think you might be a tiny bit happy that you did.

Fresh: 7.1/10