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Hoping to capitalize on the success of last year's raunchy but likable American Pie, Road Trip gives us the raunchy and not-as-likable adventures of four college bimbos. No, they're not women; they're four horny guys on a mission to retrieve a risque videotape. But their underlying stupidity and emphasis on all things sexual make for a quartet of unsympathetic boobs.

Even so, their adventures would be comical if they weren't so sophomoric. A humorous jump over a river is undermined by a ludicrous explosion soon afterwards. A confrontation with a soon-to-be ex-girlfriend tries for screwball comedy and ends up just screwed up. Of course, nothing can salvage the useless humor of a trip to a sperm clinic.

The two high points of the film are a couple of secondary characters. Comic Tom Green, who has an astoundingly irritating show on MTV, tones down his act here as a way-too-old college student giving a college tour. He's smart and funny in ways that his television persona never achieves. Amy Smart, who has a girl-next-door beauty taken to modelesque proportions, plays a smart co-ed who inexplicably falls for one of our heroes. Unfortunately, her character gets little screen time, and even that is ruined by focusing on her physical assets rather than her inner qualities.

When all is said and done, that emphasis on the physical rather than anything of worth dooms Road Trip. While American Pie, despite its aggressive sexuality, also had some genuine emotion to go along with its laughs, Road Trip takes the easy and less-successful path of bathroom and sexual humor. The only people likely to enjoy these low-brow escapades are the ones who, because of its R-rating, aren't supposed to watch it in the first place. 

J. Robert Parks 9/15/2000