Van Wilder: Freshman Year Unrated DVD Review
Posted by Joseph Lee on 07.14.2009
Any chance we could just have Van Wilder expelled?
Starring:
*Jonathan Bennett as Van Wilder
*Kristin Cavallari as Kaitlin Hays
*Jerry Shea as Yu Dum Fok
*Nestor Aaron Absera as Farley
*Kurt Fuller as Dean Charles Reardon
*Steve Talley as Dirk Arnold
*Nic Nac as Corporal Benedict
Story: It is freshman year at Coolidge College and Van Wilder is ready to party. To his dismay, all the girls have taken a vow of chastity and the dean rules the school. Van embarks on a crusade to land the campus hottie, Kaitlin and liberate his school from sexual oppression and party dysfunction.
Trivia: The only character to be in all three of these films is the dog...and it's probably not the same dog.
National Lampoon's Van Wilder is a movie that no one probably pegged as a cult classic on it's original release and yet it is one now. It was critically panned when it first came out, but has since been embraced as a funny little comedy by a lot of people. It also made Ryan Reynolds a star and earned a decent amount of money given it's low budget. As such, it received a sequel, The Rise of Taj (which I haven't seen) which had even worse reviews and this new prequel, Van Wilder: Freshman Year.
I should preface this by saying that I enjoyed the original Van Wilder when I first watched it. I don't know how it holds up, but it was funny. With that being said, I did not enjoy Freshman Year at all. To put a movie this bad into the Van Wilder series is an insult to fans of teen sex comedies, fans of Van Wilder and the National Lampoon brand. It is just that awful, that mind-numbingly insipid. I can honestly say, without hesitation that this is one of the worst comedies I've seen in a long time.
Let's start with something positive at least, and that is Jonathan Bennett. I almost feel bad for him, because he is clearly having fun and trying his best to get this thing off the ground and working. He has good comedic timing and facial expressions, but all his lines are recycled garbage from better comedies of this kind. I also have a problem with Bennett at the same time. While he's trying hard to make this funny, he's also trying hard to be Ryan Reynolds. It's almost as if he's seen the original Van Wilder many times because he tries to get the voice infliction, the mannerisms and every thing that Reynolds does down to a T. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My problem is that he should try to make the character his own, even in a movie like this.
The rest of the cast manages to bring this movie down a couple of notches with every scene they are in. Kurt Fuller, while not the most high profile or most dependable actor out there, is actually slumming it in this. Come on man, you used to match wits with Bill Murray in Ghostbusters II, and now you have a dog licking your testicles. What happened? (Speaking of which, I can't see how anyone in their right mind would find that funny at all.)
Yes, dogs licking testicles are exactly the type of low-brow humor that you can find here. The only problem is, the humor isn't humorous. I did not laugh once while watching this, and I can't imagine how anyone else would, either. You also get such unfunny topics as Asian stereotypes (including a painfully unfunny moment where an Asian girl shoots a piece of sheet and sour chicken out of...well let's not get into that), a character that is secretly gay and even some poop jokes.
Don't come away from this review thinking I've unfairly bashed this movie or am just having an off day and decided this was to blame. This is really that bad. It's not funny, it's not memorable and it's not even close to being good. I just hope this movie doesn't see big returns in DVD sales so that it can be quickly forgotten and people can focus on watching better films...like those Seltzer/Friedberg "spoof" movies. Yes, I'd rather watch one of those than ever put this into my DVD player again.
Film: 1.0
The video is presented in widescreen format. You also have the option of English, French or Spanish subtitles. It looks fine, no complaints, but it's not as if a lot of work went into the transfer, either.
Video: 7.0
For audio, you get Dolby Digital 5.1 and an English language track. As with the video, it sounds fine. You can hear everything and there are no problems. But it's just good, not great.
Audio: 7.0
Commentary with Director Harv Glazer and Cast: It would be interesting to listen to this just to find out what these people were thinking when throwing this movie together. Of course, they obviously don't care as they spend the entire commentary basically just messing around.
Creating the Legend: This is a "making of" feature actually runs a decent length, but the only reason to want to watch this would be if you liked the film. Otherwise, why would you care? It's typical fluff, as everyone talks up the movie they are in and then continue to joke around.
Going Balls Out: Colossus: The cast and crew like the dog is a star and complain. About as funny as the movie, which is to say, not very.
Coolidge College: Orientation Video: The cast, in character, discusses the fictional college they are attending.
Decatur: This tries to spoof those MTV pseudo reality shows. It's just the cast hanging out. It runs at about nine minutes.
Teacher's Pets: It's probably the best special feature because of all of the eye candy. It's just a feature about the women in the film. Nothing really important.
Bloopers: An extended cut of bloopers that appeared on the end credits.
Van's Party Supplies: A feature on all of the sex toys and bongs in the movie.
Pranks 101: Finally, a feature on the multiple pranks taking place in the movie and what the cast thinks about doing pranks.
There are also previews for Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling, National Lampoon's Stoned Age, Eagle Eye, I Love You Man, Road Trip: Beer Pong, Tropic Thunder and The Hills.
Overall, none of these features are particularly interesting, but there is a lot of it here. At least they tried to do something for this direct-to-DVD release.
Special Features: 3.0
The 411: Van Wilder: Freshman Year is the worst of the series, and I can comfortably say that without ever having seen The Rise of Taj. There is no redeeming value in this film. There are no laughs, no interesting characters and no reasons to continue watching. The DVD's special features are filler and the presentation is good, but nothing that stands out. This isn't worth your time. Avoid it.
