National Lampoon présente Van Wilder

Most collage movies are over the top dumb, filled with one constant goal, sex, but this movie isn't like most collage comedies. Yes it has sex, drugs and parties, but it's full of fun humor and heartfelt moments. Ryan Reynolds brings his full charm to the camera as his character tries to figure out life and romance in this charming collage comedy.

I generally hate these teen sex comedies and I approached "Van Wilder" with hesitation, but I actually found it to be quite entertaining and humorous (if you're in the right mood, I suppose).

Ryan Reynolds (doing a great Chevy Chase impersonation) is a guy in his late 20s who has been at college for eight years and still doesn't have a graduation in sight. His father, a rich politician (played by Tim Matheson), finally decides to cut off his son's money and as a result, Van has to think of a way to come up with enough cash to stay in school.

Pretty soon Van becomes a party planner and uses his knowledge on partying to throw great ones for nerds. He makes money off of it and his business soon becomes quite lucrative.

If you like National Lampoon humor, you may like this. If you don't, you probably won't. I gave up on National Lampoon a long time ago but this is one of their better efforts in recent years. Don't get me wrong, it's not a great movie; but I found Reynolds (who seems to pick up a lot of flak) to be quite funny and Matheson and other ex-Lampoon star cameos were amusing.

Recommended for those who can enjoy stupid humor. If you liked "Dumb and Dumber," you'll probably enjoy this.

What this movie has and other movies lack are characters you admire and care about. The movie never succumbs to sentimentality, thankfully, and it keeps a high level of cheerfulness and humor through the entire running time. This is a movie that wants to party and have fun, where characters are in high spirits and at times a little inebriated. This is the movie that will put the National Lampoon franchise back into respectability. Not only is this movie gut-bustingly funny – if you can get past the crude visual puns like a pit-bull with what looks like a ten-pound scrotum attachment, and a crotch-enhancer pump that is mistaken for a bong – this transcendent comedy of gross manners is most affecting because it's incredibly well-made. Most college campus comedies are cheap in production value and clumsily structured. Van Wilder is exceedingly well-paced and smartly written, by writers Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner (their love for Ferris Bueller is apparent) who know how to set up not only a joke but sequences of offhand slapstick that are irrepressibly absurd. Director Walter Becker (creator of the ingenious short-film Saving Ryan's Privates) handles the irreverent and random acts of background physical comedy with ease and panache.

The campus wild man is fittingly known as Van Wilder (played by Ryan Reynolds). Van Wilder is a guy that has friends from everywhere, from the jocks to the nerds. Reynolds finds a precarious balance between recklessness and cheerful insanity, which is crucial because he turns acts of humanitarian philanthropy into casual and spontaneous gestures without giving second thought. No job is ever too big for the man, whether it is becoming the de-facto basketball coach that inspires the school's team to win or setting up a rockin' party for the geekiest fraternity on campus. Van Wilder has enthusiastic support from everyone but his burned-out workaholic father (played by Tim Matheson, once the wild man in National Lampoon's Animal House) who decides after seven years of his son's enrollment to stop tuition payment.

Van Wilder becomes the subject of a school newspaper editorial and Tara Reid plays the snobby, uptight reporter Gwen whose ties belong to frat boy Richard Bagg (Daniel Cosgrove), who conducts hazing rituals that are crueler than anything since Animal House. When Gwen tries to get the naked truth from Van Wilder, she mostly just finds Van Wilder naked. But it's the smart rapport that develops between them that allows Van Wilder to strip Gwen's inhibitions, to let her walk on the wild side. In the background, a turf war erupts between Van Wilder and Richard.

The plotting is shameless in its methods of revenge. There are innocent people involved in the mayhem, including a scene where pre-pubescent boys raid one of Van Wilder's parties and end up barfing out of a school bus (but hey, these young boys had the time of their life until then). Richard's fraternity brothers are sent a basket full of éclairs stuffed with juices from a particular dormitory pet. In a knock-off homage to Dumb and Dumber, a character digests a bottle of colon blow right before he is to take a final exam.

The movie rarely takes a breath. It does settle for easy chuckles but goes for the comic gold, pushing past the ribbon of where comedy usually wears out in exhaust. Not every joke works, but you admire the efforts that the filmmakers went to in order to make you laugh. A virgin's first encounter with a girl that culminates in a massage oil rubdown gets more than messy and squanders too much, thus not earning any laughs. A scene where Van Wilder has to charm a raggedy and prunish administrator gets frighteningly explicit and goes on maybe one shot too many. But Van Wilder is always the man of the moment. One of the dorky characters goes to Van Wilder to ask him how to `muff dive.' Ultimately, Van Wilder is king and his rebel-bent philosophy is trippingly funny. At the end, you won't be able to remember all the funny scenes because there are just too many of them.

Van Wilder is hilarious! It has it's predictable moments, for example the part where the protagonist questions his being and the ending, but it's also unpredictable...and pretty disgusting. My laughter carried on from one scene to the next and it continued to the end of the film.

Ryan Renolds is great as Van. He has good timing as a comedian but also has a "sensitive and caring" side. He truly carries this entire film singlehandedly. (Personally, I thought Tara Reid lacked.) I hope I'll see more of him in films to come, he's an enjoyable actor.

Not a blockbuster movie, but very worth your time.

I am not a fan of gross out humor, but there was something about this movie that cracked me up. I absolutely LOVE Ryan Reynolds. I think he is a gifted comedian, and this was a great forum for him to get himself "out there."

I thought the dog jokes were extremely gross, especially the eclair scene, and I will NEVER be able to eat another one again! (Also, custard now makes me gag. :))

I enjoyed Taj, and thought the actor did a great job with that role. I imagine it was difficult to do with a straight face.

The one thing I did not like about the movie was TARA REID. How in God's green earth did this girl EVER get into movies. The ONLY thing I have ever liked her in was "Scrubs", and I think it's because she seems truer to that character.

The outtakes at the end are good, so don't turn it off too soon.