Thursday, December 19, 2024

Take a peek behind the curtain and test drive the NEW StateNews.com today!

Latest Lampoons misses mark

April 9, 2002
Curtis Armstrong is the campus cop in “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.” The flick follows the shenanigans of Van Wilder, who has spent seven years in college and has no degree. When his father stops paying for school, he devises a money-making scheme to pay his way.

As someone who is soon graduating from college, I look back fondly on my time here. On losing my virginity (no, it wasn’t last week), on getting drunk a lot in the dorms, or that time my friends and I horribly beat a hobo and hid his body in a Dumpster.

Well, maybe not the last one. But as many students agree, remembering the class part is hard.

Oh, there are a couple of classes that I really loved and will remember forever. But if anyone can tell me why I needed that biology class as a part of a journalism degree, I’d like to hear it.

And that’s the type of college life that the new, long-titled “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” is aiming at. It misses, for the most part. It doesn’t do too bad, until a scene in which supposed dog semen is squirted from pastry into the mouths of unknowing frat guys. That even made my stomach turn, and I’m the guy who relentlessly beat a hobo.

So, “Van Wilder” is about a guy, first name Van, last name Wilder (Ryan Reynolds). Van has spent seven years in college without getting his degree. What he has gotten, however, is a reputation as the coolest guy in school, partying and banging his way through college.

But when his dad realizes how long it’s been, he stops payment on the tuition check and Van’s out in the cold.

He figures out a way to make ends meet by planning parties -the type that get geeks laid and that legends are made of.

All through this, school journalist Gwen Pearson (Tara Reid) is on his trail, trying to do a profile of him for the last paper of the year.

Van isn’t too keen on doing interviews - but he is keen on doing Gwen, so he plays along.

Before long, the two are falling for each other, despite Gwen having a pain-in-the-ass boyfriend. Of course, without the boyfriend, who would all the gross-out pranks be played on?

And the gross-out factor is where it all goes wrong. Just seeing the “National Lampoon” logo doesn’t make a difference anymore. “Animal House”? Hilarious. “Vacation”? Loved it. Nowadays however, the Lampoon name isn’t doing so well - “Senior Trip,” anyone?

The intelligent humor of yesteryear is traded in for the standard bodily function humor. Nothing wrong with that type of humor - if it’s something that’s actually funny or interesting. But “Van Wilder” doesn’t have anything we haven’t seen before.

Reynolds does do a nice job as the lead. His laid-back approach makes Van a lot more likable than just another college partyer, and it also rounds out the sensitivity that makes the inevitable sappy conclusion work.

Reid is, well, the same Tara Reid who was in “American Pie” and “Josie and the Pussycats.” Hot? Yes. Good actress? Well, I guess it depends on what she’s wearing in the scene to distract from her performance.

And there is plenty of T & A in “Van Wilder,” enough to warrant one of those “I can’t believe you would run that ad in the State News” letters. Scantily clad women are everywhere, trying to make those of us who happen to be male forget about the story and just ogle the sweet girlie flesh on screen.

But like most teen-college-sex-gross movies as of late, the story is lacking. Another movie that fits the standard mold, giving nothing new and asking nothing of an audience except the price of admission, like some of my professors.

Hey, I’m a political science cognate, I know what I’m talking about.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Latest Lampoons misses mark” on social media.