"Road Trip" is a celebration of film's past. Not the past of "Citizen Kane" or "Singing in the Rain," but the past of "Animal House" and "Porky's." And let's be honest here -- that's the past we want paid tribute to. This movie is gratuitous nudity, happy drunk people, awkward virginity loss and videotaped sex. It's weed-smoking granddads and mouse-eating seven-year college students. It's Amy Smart naked! This is the kind of movie that dudes are dying for.
After the success of last summer's "American Pie," it was predictable that the drunken frat boy flick would return to prominence. And why not? After all, we just got through the decade of PC. The decade of rules, regulations and liability insurance. How about a little '70s/'80s style fun? It's about time.
"Road Trip's" plot is somewhat irrelevant, as you might imagine. Confused freshman Josh (Breckin Meyer, the stoner from "Clueless") is caught between sexy Beth (the incomparable Amy Smart) and girlfriend Tiffany (somebody we'll never see again). Tiffany and Josh have been together since age five and have never slept with anyone else. Beth changes all that for Josh in a videotaped sex scene that deserves to go down in film history with the topless Phoebe Cates in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
Due to a mix-up (weird how those happen), Josh's sex tape is sent to the University of Texas for girlfriend Tiffany and his mushy romance tape is the one that his roommates watch with drooling anticipation. Thus, due to a lack of funds and other ideas, Josh decides to drive to Austin in the three days remaining until his woman returns to campus. Naturally, a cast of stereotypes joins him.
Josh is your prototypical good kid. He doesn't study (God forbid!), but means well; he doesn't party too hard, but he likes to have fun. He doesn't want to cheat on his girlfriend, but he also doesn't commit the unforgivable error of not sleeping with Amy Smart.
E.L. (played by "Stifler" of "American Pie," the unafraid-to-be-typecast Seann William Scott) is the consummate frat guy player, yet charismatic in his loyalty to his friends.
Paulo Costanzo is funny as Rubin, the brainy pothead who believes the answers to the world's problems lie in his head.
Finally, DJ Squalls makes his debut as Kyle, the runtiest nerd you ever saw. We know that by the end Kyle will be standing up to his Dad and getting laid, but God knows how.
The humor of the flick lies in the unremitting hilarity that our compadres get themselves into during their trip from hell. For instance, after an Evel Knievel-like stunt goes bad, resulting in an exploded Kyle's dad's car, the boys require new transportation. Ever inventive, Stifler -- oops -- E.L., decides to steal a bus from a school for the blind. It's funny as hell but you feel pretty bad laughing.
What makes "Road Trip" more than another raunchy teen comedy is its director, Todd Phillips. Phillips is better known as the director behind the controversial "Frat House," a documentary in which the filmmakers decided to undergo the horrors of a typical pledge term at a Southern frat in order to film the events therein. Bad call by the fraternity, but in the end, "Frat House" was little-seen outside Sundance, as many questioned the documentarians' detachment. Regardless, Phillips brings a sense of pacing that questions the total comedy of each potentially painful moment and a documentary's realism to an otherwise preposterous film.
"Road Trip" is good escapism and a great reminder of how important it is to have fun during these four short years. While the humor is raunchy, the jokes can be questionable and the nudity is needless, all these things also apply to almost everyone's college reality. At least, I hope it does, kids. So go watch this movie and then eat yourself a mouse while videotaping some sex. It won't get this good again. Signing off with great pleasure, this has been Tom Wellington, your man at the movies. Take it easy.
