Senior Trip

I really don't care about what others think, but for me this movie is the best teen comedy ever. Maybe, it's just because I've not seen a lot of teen comedies.

It was year 1996 in Russia, when I bought this movie on VHS in little shop near my house. At this time I was a little stupid kid. I think, I was 10 or 11 years old. This movie made a big impression on me. You know, it's kinda hard to explain my feelings in English, cause it's not my native language, but I'll try.

Since I was a kid, I wanted to become a "cool, mature guy". I thought that being mature is like having parties all the time, drinking alcohol and so on. "Senior trip" had it all in it. It was really funny, it had all this "cool" music, that I tried to like. At this time I got my first "Nirvana" CD. I liked to be the one I was. I liked being bad, talking in bad language, joking about sex. Yes, I was a bad kid. A really bad one. After years of life such as this I get to hospital, I was really depressed, but it has nothing to do with the movie.

It was very cool to listen to grunge music in 1996, though it was not so popular in the US. And the movie felt like a "grunge" movie for me. Yeah, I know it's a very stupid movie, it has a lot of crap in it, but I still like it, cause it was like a Bible at my teenage. It showed me another, alternative life, not the stupid life I was living. My best friend liked this movie, too. He is the only one whom I showed it to this day. For me it's very personal movie, though it's neither about my life nor about my country. I think, it's very hard to understand, why I think it's great. Cause it's just my feeling, which I can't explain in Russian, too.

After this movie I saw some teen comedies like "American pie", "Road trip", "Not another teen movie", "Scary movie", but all of them are a much more badder than "Senior trip". Yes, I laughed when I watched first parts of "American pie" and "Scary movie", but I've never wanted to re-watch them again.

I don't think that this movie will be a hit, if it gets re-published today. The world has changed, the teenagers have changed. This movie is a history now. Nothing else. But in my heart it is a classic.

National Lampoon's movies always have layers of comedy. There's the surface level gags like fart jokes and people falling over but underneath that there's always much more going on. It's always worth a second or third watch so you can pay less attention to the in-your-face jokes and more attention to what's going on in the background. Senior Trip is no exception. It looks completely stupid but there's a lot going on. It deserves at least 2 viewings.

This is a stoner film.

If you're looking for a film with any kind of substance, this is not the movie for you.

If you're looking for a way to kill some time and maybe get a couple of laughs, go for it. It's definitely much funnier stoned.

This movie isn't bad. Lots of laughs, but no enlightening philosophy. It is a great movie for large gatherings. It's not as great as Animal House, but then, what is?

Slacker Mark D'Agastino (Jeremy Renner) is chasing prudish class hottie Lisa and organizes senior skip day party at principal Todd Moss (Matt Frewer)'s house. Class president Steve narcs on them and everybody gets detention. They are assigned to write a letter about the problems with the school system to the President and gets invited to Washington. Moss and new teacher Tracy Milford (Valerie Mahaffey) chaperon the group of misfits on their senior trip with Red (Tommy Chong) driving the bus.

This is fascinating to see a really young Jeremy Renner. However there is nothing too compelling about this. There are few laughs. Renner is not the flamboyant type to lead this group in a comedy. It's also interesting to have Nicole de Boer in this with Kevin McDonald playing a crazed Trekkie following the group. I'm not saying this is horrible but it simply doesn't have enough laughs.