Sex, drive and a video tape (Road Trip (DVD))

Member Name: cjkace

Product:	Road Trip (DVD)
Date:	04/06/01 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite funny, some wry looks at teen flicks

Disadvantages: not as funny as the film that inspired it

Road trip is a homage to the teen rites of passage movie that was inspired by a scene from National Lampoon's Animal House, where some of the fraternity members were in trouble and decided that the timing was perfect for a 'road trip'.

This film is based around Ithaca College, and the story is told as a narrative by a guy (Barry) who is showing prospective new students and their parents around the campus. Some of the people complain about his lack of knowledge about the campus and he informs them that Ithaca was the scene for one of the most incredible stories ever told.

The story centres around the relationship between Josh and Tiffany who are studying at universities over 1800 miles apart, and communicate mainly by video tape and the telephone. Tiffany isn't answering Josh's calls, and he believes that maybe the relationship is over, so urged on by his friend EL, he has a date with Beth.

Beth seduces Josh and records their subsequent love-making, but the tape accidently gets posted to Tiffany, just when Josh finds out that the real reason she hasn't been returning his calls because her grandfather had died.

This prompts the Road Trip of the title as Josh, EL and Ruben enlist the services of Kyle (a weedy nerd type of guy) who happens to own a car. They then set-out to drive across the country and intercept the tape before Tiffany gets it.

It's a very simple script but is very well told. Barry's rendition of the happenings come in for some criticism from the females in his tour group, and the movie does have some fairly gratuitous scenes of female nudity, because of the way Barry said things happen. The soundtrack is also quite good.

The DVD is available in two formats, one un-cut and one cut obviously. The former is the one that I own and not having seen the movie at the cinemas I can't really comment on whether their are many changes, at least enough to warrant it's expl
icit 'what you didn't see at the cinema' sub heading on the box.

The extras on the DVD include deleted scenes, a music video by the 'Eels', theatrical trailers but no commentary. Ultimtely although I enjoyed the film, I didn't find it as funny as either Animal House (which inspired it) or American Pie (on whose success this movie was released), but it's quite funny, with some very wry tongue in cheek comments on the way teen flicks are made. That said, I would still buy this movie but maybe some would be better served renting it first.

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