Road Trip (2000, DVD)

Road Trip was marketed a heavy bit by the presence of Tom Green in the cast. At the time, Green was enjoying his peak in popularity, and the makers of RT wisely decided to bank off that. So here we have Green in his theatrical advertisement of Road Trip, playing the main role and providing one of the selling-point scenes of the film, which is him placing a live rodent in his mouth. Now, this undoubtedly peaked the attention of gross-out fans, like myself, and so the movie made a ton at the box office. It's a little puzzling then, how Green is so under-utilized in this movie. Yeah, he's a part of the beginning and a little bit of the end, but Green's role in the actual story the film tries to tell, is disappointing. It feels tacked on, as if only to have Green there to extend the lifespan of the film.

Still, Todd Philips' Road Trip is a hilarious and brilliant movie. It feels like a satirical adaption of a children's adventure film, outfitted with 90's teen-flick stars and topped off with a slightly-toned-down Tom Green.

The focal point of Road Trip is a story about Josh Parker (Breckin Meyer), a college student who's met with an unlikely scenario. A video tape of him and another woman is accidentally sent to his girlfriend Beth on the other side of the country, and he has three days to tour there and retrieve it. Beth (Amy Smart) has had a death in the family, meaning she won't be back in school for another few days. It's only 1800 miles, right?

Well anyway, Road Trip is about his trip across the country with friends E.L. (Seann Willaim Scott), Rubin (Paulo Costanzo), and Kyle (DJ Qualls). Of course, the car he borrows from his friend unwillingly, gets destroyed halfway there, and they are forced to peruse a school bus instead. Now, it's kind of funny that they would borrow a school bus for 'special' children, as opposed to a normal sized one. Road Trip takes quite a few subtle pot shots at it's characters..

The only bad part about the film, is how underused Tom Green is. The point may be getting redundant, but I must stress this. Green's scenes feature his usual sarcastic-satan smile, the gross-out stuff (swallowing a mouse), derangement/obsession (talking to a snake), and even more gross out (making out with a kid's mother in front of him). Though the scenes are funny, they feel pointless when considering the overall scope of the film. It's about a trip to Austin Texas by four college students, and Tom Green isn't one of them? Instead, he's staying at the college and doing a bunch of crazy stuff with a mouse and a snake. It's very funny, but feels a little tacked on.

But the five star score pervails. Why? Because this movie is so frickin' hilarious, that's why. It's almost as good as the Tom Green Show itself. Every scene has something that will make you laugh about it. Whether it's the 'boinking' of an overweight girlfriend, or an elderly Barry's father hearing his own dog talk. If there's one teen film that can turn a frown upside down intentionally, it's Road Trip. It gets my second highest recommendation in terms of teen films, right behind the first American Pie.

Overall: Five retarded children's school buses out of Five