eternalsea

Martin Lawrence is hardly the height of great cinematic performers, during the 90's the success of comics such as Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler prevented him from getting to many high profile movies, against the likes of Carrey who is actually funny, Lawrence just didn't represent that much of a Box-Office threat. Now that a lot of those dudes are attempting more serious films, Lawrence has recently had two films released in close quarters the passable Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins and this abomination. Basically the film sees Lawrence ferry his daughter around the country in order to help her find the perfect college with several other family members and assorted characters lagging behind. All are suitably "crazy" in that stupid Hollywood way, and Lawrence clearly sees himself as the star of this woeful effort, gurning and overacting his way through as many scenes as possible. Bottom line....the man ain't funny!!! A film similar to this was made not that long ago with Cedric The Entertainer called Jonson Family Vacation. It wasn't great but at least it had a few chuckle worthy moments, I don't think I was amused successfully once during College Road Trip, bar by the sheer poverty of imagination displayed by it's clearly juvenile screenwriters. The director is Roger Kumble who made the excellent Cruel Intentions just short of 10 years ago, and since has been gradually heading down hack road, he may have made a half credible film with Just Friends but 2002's The Sweetest Thing was simply not acceptable. However this is a new nadir for the man I once thought was at least semi-talented, here he directs with a bland eye and is clearly not enthusiastic about the product. Basically he wanted a bit of cash and this was the best way to get it. Comically inept and at times completely unwatchable College Road Trip is as weak a comic effort as I expect 2008 theatres will have to show, and should pop up quickly on DVD. It's an early but strong candidate for the years bottom 10, and may even be the ever irritating Lawrence's worst production to date. Sadly however one is almost certain it will enter the weekends top 5, and might even grab the coveted no.1 spot. Still when the reviews start flying it will drop fast like the dead weight it is. Avoid.

Superbad 2007, 118mins, 15 Director: Greg Mottola Cast includes: Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

It's really been Judd Apatows year, the comedy guru steered Knocked Up to #2 in the US domestic charts bettered only by the pirate fuelled adventures of Johnny Depp and co. on it's opening weekend. Then several weeks later Superbad hit theatres this time with Apatow producing, the magic still hit home the feature managed to take $32 million on it's opening weekend alone, on a mere $20 million budget. Both pictures also drew great reviews marking a mammoth year for Apatow, and based on Superbad he probably deserves mucho credit. The film depicts two pals Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) very different people in one grossly over dependent friendship. Seth is foul mouthed and obsessed with sex, Evan is more controlled and a lot less crazy about intercourse. Both are socially outcast but when invited to the last big party before they graduate the boys and their nerdy tag along Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) acquire a fake I.D and attempt to get a massive booze haul, so as to impress the girls they like and try to lose that one thing all teenage boys want to see the back off. Their virginity. The film is set really into two stories that off Seth and Evan which eats up two thirds of the screen time, and that of Fogell and two lovable but inept cops played by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader. The two are conjoined at the beginning and at the end, but the middle section splices between the two. The film is written in the same crude but clever manner that films like American Pie and The 40 year Old Virgin (another Apatow product) big hits in recent years. It's nice to see a teen comedy that whilst containing all the same elements of the genre, also has a heart, soul and some extremely familiar situations and gags. Films like Road Trip, Pledge This and Van Wilder only maintain half of that equation and as a result are only ever half as good as Superbad indeed in the case of the Paris Hilton DTV movie, they can be a lot worse than even that. The performances are all excellent, Hill can be a tad irritating at times but it's well tempered by Cera's always charming turn. The two share great chemistry, the audience truly believes in their 10 year friendship. As Fogell Christopher Mintz-Plasse really gets the majority of the laughs, he's not a character with any real emotional core but his hilarious I.D (he names himself only McLovin) and his antics with Rogen and Hader are just about the funniest things in the film. Speaking of that duo they're also very good, particularly Hader as the more unstable of the two. One of the key problems the film has is it's lack of development with any female characters. The two chicks the lead duo are after are good looking and pleasant but nothing more. The young actresses do fine with the material I expect they where given, it's just the material itself feels light in the load. The jokes are usually amusing with several laugh out loud moments interspersed within the movie. Obviously a few gags don't work (a sequence involving a young child drawing dicks didn't do it for me) but generally the observations made by screenwriters Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen are funny, witty and surprisingly affecting and familiar. Within the Summer it was released I found only The Simpsons Movie funnier. At two hours director Greg Mottola lets the film drag on 10 minutes to long, but to make the emotional points he needs the man is right to take the picture past the standard 90 minute runtime for this sort of fare. Some parties have read into a gay subtext within the production, I didn't pick up on that, just that these where two friends very close to each other. Seeing as the film also points out that both guys are going to different colleges, the film also deals with the partition of this friendship. Some of the conversations surrounding this are really well done and tug a little at the audience's heart strings. Superbad has a few flaws but none are fatal. The film is funny and emotionally engaging which is what it really needs to be, and thus some of the dud jokes and 2-D characters are easy to forgive. The film offers enjoyment and a little more, which is much more than most of it's over stuffed genre can muster. It ain't Supergood, but I'd certainly give it a watch.

Accepted 2006, 89mins, 12 Director: Steve Pink Cast includes: Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Maria Thayer, Lewis Black, Blake Lively

If nothing else Accepted has a great premise. A bunch of slackers fail to get into college and as a result form their own. The picture didn't however hit big with the public, bombing at the box-office and it's not particularly hard to see why. Whilst the film has a good idea and a solid teen cast, Accepted only shows how a tepid script and flaccid direction can undermine the quality of any production. When "B" (Justin Long) fails to get into any college much to the disappointment of his parents, he along with a group of his pals decide to set up their own the South Harmon Institute of Technology (or S.H.I.T....lame alert!!!) in order to make them look better in the eyes of their mothers and fathers. However neighbouring colleges don't like the party all day attidude of S.H.I.T and promptly it's combo of bikini babes, drunken fiestas and general craziness is put under inspection. The performances in Accepted are all fairly adequate, Justin Long is a likable (if a tad bland) in the lead, Jonah Hill is a scene stealer as his brain box best friend and Lewis Black provides a few chuckles as the fake hired Dean for the newly "opened" university. The rest of the characters are within themselves clichés, kooky girl, sports jock, hot chick with feelings and idiot with a talent. We've seen these presentations of youth a thousand times before in Animal House, American Pie, Road Trip and more recently Superbad. Accepted has as good a plot as any of those pictures, but it's constant recycling of their jokes and characters makes it far harder to warm to. The villains are all snooty and aryan, but not one is given a character. Even mediocre teen flicks like Road Trip and Slackers manage to present us with a total bastard of a bad guy, Accepted has nothing... Steve Pink's direction is uninspired and really has nothing unique to it's name. He frequently shows wasted "party dudes" doing outrageous stuff and sexy girls stripping down to skimpy bikinis but that won't satisfy anyone over the age of 16. The script is pretty lame, several gags do work quite well and Jonah Hill has a whole barrage of cheeky one liners but you won't find yourself laughing that often. Even smiles are scarce during the pictures rather short 89 minutes, more often than not your just bored. The idea would have been far better under the careful eyes of the Weitz brothers are Judd Apatow, the creative team here have done well to come up with the idea but in it's actual construction have fired far to many blanks. The PG-13 rating doesn't even allow for a raunchy style of humour, sex jokes are rare and generally juvenile and weak in Accepted. Indeed the only real one I remember is a hot girl who names her special skill as taking her clothes off, thats it.... Fans of the genre may find some stuff to like about the picture, and those to young to legally watch without a guardian might think it "totally awesome". The truth however is very dustant from that, Accepted is dull and if we're being brutally honest deserved the backlash and failure it received. Best to reject this, and try your luck with better institutions like American Pie or Superbad.