NATIONAL LAMPOON'S SENIOR TRIP
A film review by Chad Polenz
Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz
z- [0] (out of 4 = beyond terrible) 1995, R, 91 minutes [1 hour, 31 minutes] [comedy] starring: Matt Frewer (Principal Todd Moss), Valerie Mahaffery (Miss Tracy Milford), Tommy Chong (Red), Jeremy Renner (Dags), written by Roger Kumble, I. Marlene King, produced by Wendy Grean, directed by Kelly Makin.
It's really sad that movies as bad as "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" are made, let alone thought up. I can't image what went on during the pitch for this movie, maybe the executives were temporarialy insane to approve something this ludicrous. Everything in Hollywood is ripped off of something else, but how low does National Lampoon have to be to rip off itself? Watching teenagers get drunk, stoned, and have sex isn't funny.
There really isn't a plot here, only a simple and extremely predictable story about a group of cliche, idiotic, high school slackers who crash the principal's house for a party, and then proceed to drive from Ohio to Washington to meet the president to tell him the education system "sucks." But this movie doesn't even try to be anything original. It is the epitome of bad, raunchy, semi-pornographic B-movies that are shown on cable at 3 a.m., but in this case it's with high school students and that only makes it more sick.
The road trip and the brat pack of teens is a staple for Hollywood comedy, but this film goes beyond the realms of good taste and offers shock value comedy, while at the same time delivering childish, cartoony humor and antics. Of course all the students hate their anal, geeky, dumbfound principal, Mr. Moss (Frewer). All they want to do is get drunk, stoned, and have sex with each other.
Of course we get all the token characters here: Dags (Renner), the cool leader; the pothead; the fat guy who will eat anything; the computer geek; the slut; the kiss-up; some lesbians; and an insane kid obsessed with "Star Trek." But it's not enough to just have these characters present, the film goes as far as to essentially label them with arrows by the sheer appearance of the characters alone. There is absolutely no subtlety here.
I don't know what went through the writers' heads while scripting this. Are we really supposed to think only sex, drugs, and alcohol are funny? Are we supposed to be curious about these characters and wonder how they will interact with each other? Are we supposed to think teenagers interacting with debutantes and getting them drunk and having a massive orgy is funny? I appreciate a lowbrow joke now and then, but this is so low it's enough to make you sick. It could be considered obscene, not because of its substance, but because of its attitude - that it actually presents itself as something to take seriously.
I shouldn't even begin to nitpick at all the fallacies to "National Lampoon's Senior Trip," let's just say whatever could be bad about it is. In fact "bad" isn't even a strong enough word, only "terrible" or even "vile" would really be accurate.
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