Justin Long is Bartleby Gaines, rejected from a series of reputable colleges, who forges an acceptance letter to a fake college to appease his parents and finds he must create an actual college campus to follow through with his ruse - South Harmon Institute of Technology (the sophomoric acronym S.H.I.T. used with ubiquitous abandon and little effect). Slackers from around the state actually attend and the "college courses" (Math-turbation, Men Are Weak, Exploding Things with your Mind, Watching Bikini Girls, etc.) are actually accredited by movie's end through the methodology of Inspiring Movie Speeches Accompanied by Music Swells (can anyone say *Scent of a Woman*?). Yes, it is almost as funny as that day you stubbed your toe on your bed.
Writers Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Mark Perez, and director Steve Pink ask us to accept TOO MUCH without any quality comedy in return. Photoshopping letters of acceptance is one thing; designing a website that would pass scrutiny for parents about to shell out $10,000 for semester fees is another thing altogether. Bartelby's parents are fanatic enough about his college acceptance to feel his multiple rejections constitute moral and social failings on their part; they are embarrassed for him and for their family then the movie asks us to believe that parents with that level of inculcation/indoctrination would accept a college's veracity/suitability for their son on the strength of a website, from which one cannot make contact with any authorities (obviously, or the scam would fall apart immediately).
That's just the first obstacle this film deals with as callously as it deals with every other obstacle. The implausibilities mount quicker than we can breathe: four friends transform a derelict mental hospital into a passable college campus that once again fools the parents (by this point, we are considering seriously that Bartelby's parents are mildly autistic); they set up a wacko acquaintance as a dean (Lewis Black one of the only funny elements); no local authorities seem to exist to poke their noses into the transformation of the hospital site; electricity, water, maintenance concerns don't seem to exist in this universe
By the half-hour mark, there is such an Everest of implausibilities that we almost *can't* breathe and one either a) sits back, relaxes, watches the movie and finds it funny, or b) feels like tearing out the eyes and mashing the genitals of the imbeciles who greenlit the imbeciles who created this low form of colon cancer.
That's a case of "b)" for me, thanks
The movie poises itself to explore a number of directions all of which could have been comedic, any of which would have been more interesting than the sophomoric semi-trailer it slides itself under; firstly, Education: it IS an outdated Agrarian Age system, more interested in leaching the inquisitive mind from pupils and pimping them unto society as peons for the workforce. (Listen to Lewis Black's rants - they are quite astute, but in the context of this movie, taken as lunatic ravings.) Secondly, populating this fake college with dropouts and washouts and losers and arguing that they will make something of themselves if left to their devices is demonstrably asinine unmotivated people are in their burger-flipping positions precisely because they *were* left to their devices and FAILED. They cannot create long-term game plans for themselves, let alone administer a college bureaucracy.
Justin Long has created a niche for himself (young-ish geek, beige, unthreatening guy whom mother can meet) and he carries the movie well as a leading man, but not through any overt talent or charisma; rather because his supporting cast are so creamy vanilla with nothing on top. In fact, there is such a LACK of charisma in Long's supporting troupe (Jonah, Hill, Adam Herchman, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer), it feels as if they're only appearing in *Accepted* because, like their characters, they were rejected from parts on other films.
Writers Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Mark Perez, and director Steve Pink ask us to accept TOO MUCH without any quality comedy in return. Photoshopping letters of acceptance is one thing; designing a website that would pass scrutiny for parents about to shell out $10,000 for semester fees is another thing altogether. Bartelby's parents are fanatic enough about his college acceptance to feel his multiple rejections constitute moral and social failings on their part; they are embarrassed for him and for their family then the movie asks us to believe that parents with that level of inculcation/indoctrination would accept a college's veracity/suitability for their son on the strength of a website, from which one cannot make contact with any authorities (obviously, or the scam would fall apart immediately).
That's just the first obstacle this film deals with as callously as it deals with every other obstacle. The implausibilities mount quicker than we can breathe: four friends transform a derelict mental hospital into a passable college campus that once again fools the parents (by this point, we are considering seriously that Bartelby's parents are mildly autistic); they set up a wacko acquaintance as a dean (Lewis Black one of the only funny elements); no local authorities seem to exist to poke their noses into the transformation of the hospital site; electricity, water, maintenance concerns don't seem to exist in this universe
By the half-hour mark, there is such an Everest of implausibilities that we almost *can't* breathe and one either a) sits back, relaxes, watches the movie and finds it funny, or b) feels like tearing out the eyes and mashing the genitals of the imbeciles who greenlit the imbeciles who created this low form of colon cancer.
That's a case of "b)" for me, thanks
The movie poises itself to explore a number of directions all of which could have been comedic, any of which would have been more interesting than the sophomoric semi-trailer it slides itself under; firstly, Education: it IS an outdated Agrarian Age system, more interested in leaching the inquisitive mind from pupils and pimping them unto society as peons for the workforce. (Listen to Lewis Black's rants - they are quite astute, but in the context of this movie, taken as lunatic ravings.) Secondly, populating this fake college with dropouts and washouts and losers and arguing that they will make something of themselves if left to their devices is demonstrably asinine unmotivated people are in their burger-flipping positions precisely because they *were* left to their devices and FAILED. They cannot create long-term game plans for themselves, let alone administer a college bureaucracy.
Justin Long has created a niche for himself (young-ish geek, beige, unthreatening guy whom mother can meet) and he carries the movie well as a leading man, but not through any overt talent or charisma; rather because his supporting cast are so creamy vanilla with nothing on top. In fact, there is such a LACK of charisma in Long's supporting troupe (Jonah, Hill, Adam Herchman, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer), it feels as if they're only appearing in *Accepted* because, like their characters, they were rejected from parts on other films.