Road Trip Reviewed by Christian Pyle Directed by Todd Phillips Written by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong Starring Seann William Scott, Breckin Meyer, D. J. Qualls, Paulo Costanzo, Amy Smart, and Tom Green Grade: C+
"Road Trip" is this year's offering to the audience of "There's Something About Mary" and "American Pie." Its hero, Josh Porter (Breckin Meyer), attends the University of Ithaca, New York, while his sweetheart since childhood, Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard of TV's "Clueless"), goes to the University of Texas at Austin. Tiffany hasn't returned any of his calls for awhile, and Josh worries that she's dumping him for someone else. He records a video-taped plea for her attention and asks a friend to mail it. Later, after hearing that Tiffany isn't sleeping in her dorm room, Josh succumbs to the advances of Beth (Amy Smart) and allows her to tape their erotic exploits. Of course, the wrong video tape is mailed to Texas, and the road trip is on. Desperate to retrieve the tape before Tiffany sees it, Josh sets out to Texas with three companions: the overly sexed E. L. (Seann William Scott), the overly neurotic Rubin (Paulo Costanzo), and the overly virginal Kyle (D. J. Qualls).
Meanwhile, Barry (Tom Green), a space cadet who's been at Ithaca for seven years, is in charge of feeding a small mouse to Rubin's pet snake. He's obsessed with the sick thrill of feeding one live animal to another, and this chore occupies his attention for most of the movie. When Beth comes around looking for Josh, Barry tells her Josh went to see Tiffany in "Austin, Massachusetts." Thinking that he means Boston, Beth sets out on a road trip of her own. A fourth storyline: Kyle's domineering dad (Fred Ward) believes that Kyle has been kidnapped and follows the trail of Josh and the boys. A fifth: a creepy graduate student (Anthony Rapp) who's stalking Beth plots to keep Josh from passing philosophy.
I remember seeing an interview with Mike Myers about the making of "Wayne's World." He said when they finished filming it, it was too short. So they put together some more stuff, and it was still too short. So they put together some more stuff . . . A similar process probably followed Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong's idea to make a movie about a bunch of guys on a road trip where funny stuff happens. Their screenplay seems to follow the "Wayne's World" model of padding out a thin plot by adding gags. The material in "Road Trip" that actually develops the plot or the characters is sparse. Josh and his posse make detours as unlikely as selling semen, visiting Barry's grandparents, and bluffing their way into an all-black fraternity.
The good news: all those gags that seem thrown in are really funny. I laughed throughout the movie, especially during Barry's attempts at feeding the snake and during a scene where the boys decide to jump Kyle's car over a collapsed bridge. If you enjoy the "Something About Mary" style of comedy, you'll have a good time watching "Road Trip."
Given Tom Green's prominence in the trailers and posters, his fans might expect his character to be the protagonist or to at least be included in the titular road trip. However, despite the fact that his scenes have nothing to do with the main plot, "Road Trip" cuts back to him frequently, and he provides more than his share of laughs. In addition to the snake-feeding subplot, Barry appears in a framing sequence in which he relates the tale of the road trip to a group of prospective students.
The boyish and bony D. J. Qualls will emerge as an unlikely favorite of audiences because his character Kyle is irresistibly sweet and is also the only character that is developed during the course of the movie. The actor who plays the hero, Breckin Meyer, who previously appeared in "Clueless" and "Go," brings little to the party. Josh is a bland rendition of "typical college guy." He has surprisingly little emotional involvement in the love triangle at the center of the plot; he seems to be with Tiffany out of habit and with Beth for purely physical reasons.
Bottom line: Lots of laughs if you if you don't need frills like a plot or character development.
© 2000 Christian L. Pyle
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