You have to thank Something About Mary and American Pie for doing what they did. These are two movies that came along and were bold enough to try something different. Those films included raunchy jokes, crude humour, nudity and they had the audacity to poke fun at everyone, call them the Quentin Tarantino of comedies. Before American Pie, you had some ALMOST good films with Can't Hardly Wait and 10 Things I Hate About You. They were good but not quite good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Animal House and Porky's and such. Then American Pie comes along and shows everyone that it is okay to have boobs again and to use the f-word liberally with lines like " Sherman, what the f*** are you doing here?" and " Oz, F***face, I don't think he's coming back!" This was a film that didn't try to imitate closely the way teens and young adults talk, it DID imitate the way teens and young adults talk. Road Trip continues that trend. Hollywood has to realize when it gives the green light to scripts that we are not as stupid as they think we are, in most cases. And what I mean by that is simply, sure, it can make money off almost any excuse for a teen film like Drive Me Crazy and Here On Earth and such, but if you want to hit the jackpot, if you want young people to feel the need to see the film more than once and recommend it to their friends, you have to have a smart ear, likable characters to laugh at and more than just a simple boy meets girl story. Road Trip is that movie!
When I went into the film, I was shocked but pleasantly so, to see Ivan Reitman and Dan Goldberg's name attached to the film as executive producers. These are guys that have brought us films like Animal House, Ghostbusters, Meatballs, Stripes and even something like Kindergarten Cop. These are all funny films with a great ear for dialogue. So it immediately starts off on the right foot.
The next thing it did right is the casting of Tom Greene and Sean William Scott. Greene is quite sick and twisted by nature and Sean William Scott stole every scene in American Pie. So to include them in your cast as the raunchiest guys of the bunch is great casting. The next thing the film does right is it goes back to the roots of campus comedy and it has plenty of nudity. Yes, sure this may sound sexist and primitive but it also sells tickets. And they can actually make a case for having it because the story is being told by Greene's character so, as he puts it, " it is my story, there can be lots of nudity if I want there to be. "
Road Trip has plenty of beautiful women, crude jokes, a nerd that discovers who he is, annebriation, drugs, mean sprited jokes and a script that is more convoluted and conventionally funny than any film save American Pie. Nothing is sacred here. That includes the blind, obesity, women, animals and of course nerds.
This is a fun film and although I am sure that it is garnered more towards males, if you can go in with an open mind anyone can enjoy it. I will bet that this film will go on to gross about 70 or 80 million dollars and I hope that more films are made in this kind of tradition. We need more films inspired by Animal House. We need more characters that are take-offs of John Belushi and Tom Greene. Maybe Ivan Reitman will have another script like this one on his shelf somewhere and he is ready to dust that one off as well. Maybe. All I know is that this film is fresh and it is worth your time.
And of course, most importantly, it is one hell of a funny movie!
8.5 out of 10
