After School Special

this film was meant to be a dumb comedy. the whole point is so that you laugh and are offended and think, "man this is stupid" all at the same time. i loved it. i thought it was hilarious, raunchy and dumb-funny. not a movie for kids, or people who are offended easily by crude sexual humor. the lead cast was decent, all except the stripper (she wasn't very convincing). the plot was so incredibly far fetched, thats what made it so funny and stupid at the same time. i mean come on, what kind of movie did you expect with tom arnold in it? it was exactly what i expected, and i am glad i rented it. also, its not a secret that national lampoon movies are almost always teenish sexfest movies these days. i think i have made it clear what kind of movie it is....love it or hate it, at least you know what to expect.

When I happened to stumble across this film, it was entitled Barely Legal and not After School Special. Truth is, the film is barely watchable and feels more like a drunken after dinner daydream than an after school special. Is there an audience for this sort of material? Are there people that will enjoy a film like Barely Legal? The film isn't really about anything as much as it is a documentation of producing pornography or the meek attempt at making pornography and all the hassle that it involves. What really grates, and this is an underlying theme, is that watching a really bad film is one thing but watching a really bad film about people attempting to make a really bad film within the universe of what we're seeing is just painful.

The film, a part of the National Lampoon series (whatever that is), was directed by David M. Evans (answers on a postcard as to what the 'M' might stand for) whose previous crimes against cinema include the 3rd and 4th Beethoven outings some years ago and who is also scheduled to direct the up and coming 'Ace Ventura Junior' film. That should be, if Jim Carrey sequels/prequels not starring Jim Carrey are anything to go by in the form of Son of the Mask and Dumb and Dumberer, utterly unwatchable at the very best.

This particular little travesty however follows three young American boys at high school as they attempt to feed off Tony Montana's ideation of 'getting the money, getting the power and getting the women'. Yeah, trouble is Tony Montana had nothing to do with making pornography and Barely Legal has nothing to do with chasing the American dream: it's just clueless, horny kids using porn as a front to get closer to girls. The film is fundamentally flawed in every retrospect. Any film entitled 'Barely Legal' which revolves around people making pornography and still manages to worm its way into a realm of the '15' certificate over here in Britain instead of the '18' certificate has to have done something cataclysmically wrong during the making process. Clearly, the BBFC deem it not all that bad in terms of gratuity and I just wonder if that was the certificate the makers were aiming for – I doubt it.

The boys making the film are Deacon (von Detten); Fred (Denman) and Matt (Farber), three hapless individuals given mercilessly unfunny introductions about their relationships toward girls and some of their 'habits' when it comes to communicating with them. The film totally disregards women from the off but the sad fact is that's an absolute given in this genre. There is lots of slow motion, lots of hair flicking and cutesy smiling girls looking flirtatious although any sane viewer will just yawn at it all. At one point in the film, a character whilst making the porno exclaims something along the lines of "Women's points of view don't even matter in these sorts of movies" and he's sort of hit the nail on the head for all the wrong reasons – when he says 'these sorts of movies', is it the real film actually recognising how rubbish it knows it is? If so then it's admitting it is rubbish; if not, then it's admitting to its blatant sexism right there.

I think when the people that wrote this actually finished it, they were twenty or so pages short of 90 odd minutes. Thus, the messy and dull narrative that opens up to do with Deacon loosing his friends as the project falls apart is silly and doesn't work; it feels thrown in and manufactured out of the primary story about kids wanting girls so they make porn. It's the overall idea I don't understand. When will people learn that pornography is not funny? When will people realise that films about pornography are not funny? Glimpses or very quick cuts of bras, nipples and so forth do-not-make-people-laugh, simple; they are an on screen visualisation of someone's fantasy writ down and writ large across the screen for others to see – it's not funny and it's a waste of everyone's time.

IMDb has this film on its 'release dates' page opening at Cannes, in May 2003 – it's one of those screenings at Cannes you just wish you were there for, purely for the reaction and the witnessing of the mass walkout I'm sure there was, that is of course if the fact it was shown there is true in the first place. Supposedly, Irreversible is the most walked out of film at Cannes ever, but that's only because no one was paying any attention to the screenings of this junk. Everywhere else, this was direct to DVD and the cast probably wanted it swept under the carpet for good measure. When the friendships have been broken down and patched up in doubly quick time, there's time for local porn king Vic Ramalot (Sanz) to waltz around in public complete with gun drawn hunting for the kids who he assumes to be up and coming rivals threatening his business. It really is that daft and that bad.

Although most National Lampoon movies save for Van Wilder haven't been been any good in recent times, the tag-line and cover of this DVD proved just too tempting, and when faced between the choice of watching this and some Chick Flick Drama (Derailed i think)) the obvious choice was made.

However in view of the recent movies I automatically reduced my expectations and expected nothing more than a few laughs a bunch of hot nude women and nothing out of the ordinary.

And thats exactly what I got!!

Every thing about this movie is run-of-the-mill and formula based but when you factor in the target audience (ME and others like me who like to escape reality once in a while indulge in a bit of immature fun and fantasy) then the formula assures a decent product (Most of the Times).

This movie is pieced together using cast from other National Lampoon movies and the best part is apart from the women (who all look over 20-25) the guys look like they could still be in high school (or thereabouts).

Decent performances are given from everyone but Tom Arnold was completely wasted in this movie.

The jokes were formula based but some of them were hilarious and continued in the gross tradition of others, the monkey mating scene, the hairdresser scene, the 2-3 hilarious porn shoots were too good and make this movie worth the rent.

Other than that this movie is filled with loads of chuckles and the regular stuff such as the quest for true love, nerds becoming cool etc etc which was in fact handled so badly that any potential that his movie had was ruined. WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT THE TEEN EMOTIONAL STUFF IS THE ONLY THING THAT BRINGS THIS MOVIE DOWN. Not because it there but because it been handled so badly.

The sound effects of this movie were actually quite good but there was no soundtrack to speak of.

A few people who stood out in this movie were Daniel Farber and Horatio Sanz as the hilarious Vic Ram-a lot.

Direction production etc was not really important but was decent.

Writing could have been way better in both the emotional and the comedy scenes but the emotional scenes were badly handled (comedy was good but not up-to its potential, teens in porn is full proof formula).

In all a funny movie with just a couple of scenes making the entire movie worth it.

However keep this movie in the Back-up list as it doesn't warrant a trip to the store on its own merit.(As always if you don't like such movies then don't rent them).

-s PATHETHIC EMOTIONAL SCENES, Tom Arnold wasted, Nothing out of the ordinary (as expected)

+/s meets lowered expectations, so so casting

+s a bunch of hilarious scenes, lots of chuckles, Vic Ramalot.

total 6/10 (absolute and factoring in expectations)

I was not planning on writing my first ever review for this movie, but the prior review kinda obliged me to do so after watching the movie. It is mildly entertaining at the very most and does not come close to other teenage or high school movies. Trust the average votes and not individual reviews.

Not a movie you will fully regret watching, but also nothing to write home about. It only contains maybe a handful of laughing out loud moments and that's that.

I would have given it a 4.5, but since that is not possible I'll give it a 5/10.

This movie was just what I expected - nothing more , nothing less than a fun way to waste an hour and a half – especially if you don't have anything else to do , or just don't feel like watching something more serious. For one thing I thought that it was really funny - and at the same time some of the scenes were hot – but I guess you will have to be like the characters starring- a horny teenager or something to appreciate that. The soundtrack isn't anything special – but you won't notice that if you don't pay attention to the music in the movies. To summarise it was one of the good comedies around there – and if you enjoy movies such as "American Pie "you will enjoy this one as well.