Van Wilder: Freshman Year

This movie tries to follow the format of the original film. Thus, there are T&A galore, raunchy humor, bizarre characters, and wild parties. Bennett even kind of looks like Ryan Reynolds.

But generally, this flick doesn't do it as good as the original. Some of the jokes are kind of funny, but most are tepid or even complete knockoffs of old jokes I've heard before. While the original used eccentric characters and outlandish situations as springboards for humor, this one just goes deep into Bizzaro World (a college run by its ROTC director, who has posted "No Partying" and "No Kissing" signs, and can involuntarily enroll students in ROTC?).

Bennett decently mimicked Reynolds, but he didn't have the same charisma. Cavallari was charismatic, though, and I liked her as the love interest. Meredith Giangrande was downright sexy as forbidden- fruit Eve.

If you love being grossed out, this film ups the ante from the first one on the disgusting factor, although that's not particularly my thing. I do have to say, however, that the soft-porn aspects of this film are better than the original. There are scenes involving girls with vibrators, and a sex-ed class that illustrates intriguing positions (although with clothes on, but still), which may almost make you forget you're watching a comedy.

Van Wilder (Jonathan Bennett) is a freshman in Coolidge College. The place has all kinds of rules and run by the dictatorial Dean Charles Reardon (Kurt Fuller). Kaitlin Hayes (Kristin Cavallari) and boyfriend Dirk Arnold are ROTC recruits. Van takes an interest in Kaitlin. He breaks through his dorm wall and takes his neighbor Farley as a roommate. They throw a party but only Yu Dumb Fok shows up.

Van Wilder is Ryan Reynolds. It's that simple and nothing less. Jonathan has a bit of that roguish charm but he's no Ryan. Kristin Cavallari has limitations. She can't expand beyond her range. This movie has the prerequisite nudity and Jonathan's charms carry this for a little while. There may be a small chuckle or two but it gets boring by the midway point.

First, if anyone is watching a National Lampoon movie for Oscar nominations is a fool.

Second, its actually fairly funny. They just followed the basics.... lots of t&a, a douche bag, a hero, and some chick between the douche bag and the hero.... plus a lot of t&a

third, the only thing I didn't like is the lack of creativity of the jokes. They basically took a page out of Ace Ventura, and Adam Sandler.

I think Ryan Reynolds really made the first one good because, well it was Ryan Reynolds. And even though there have been a lot of N. Lapmoon movies, most of them were pretty... lame compared to this.

Wanna know a better way to spend an hour and 38 minutes? Beat your head against a wall, you'll get more out of it. Why is there no option for zero stars?

It is kind of difficult to imagine why this movie came into being, and even more so to pretend that it is supposed to be a prequel to the original 2002 "Van Wilder" movie.

It is one of those types of movies where you just know that it is not going to be a grand experience, but you still sit down to watch it, hoping that there might be just a speck of entertainment to be had here.

"Van Wilder: Freshman Years" turned out to be a less than mediocre movie, and not an overly entertaining one either. And I will actually go as far as to say that you should definitely not view this as a prequel to the 2002 movie. Instead, view it as a stand-alone movie that has no ties to the 2002 movie.

This movie relies on cheap laughs, which are brought about mostly by humor well below the belt. But many times this humor just doesn't really come through properly. So it seems that it is the result of some half-hearted script writing.

The storyline in "Van Wilder: Freshman Years" is just not a very interesting or original one. It is all something that essentially has been seen before in similar late teen comedies. So don't count on originality being the key ingredient in this movie.

For a comedy of this type, then "Van Wilder: Freshman Years" was less than mediocre. And once you have seen it the first time, chances that you will return to watch it a second time are slim to none.