I had the displeasure of watching Van Wilder for the first and last time last night. Oh how it still burns in my head. This poor film suffers from some odd sort of cinematic schizophrenia: sometimes it thinks it wants to be animal house as it's stereotypical "frat-boy-cum-slave-driver" uses unidentified and nameless students as croquet posts and tunnels, and sometimes it wants to be a sentimental love story. This movie feels like a string of barely related pranks and humor that was patch-worked together with something akin to a plot. Our hero, the amiable and misguided but otherwise kind hearted Van Wilder is every college boys wet dream of a self-image: Intelligent but not too intelligent, clever with comebacks, interested in finer things like love and friends and disinterested in having a life revolving around work, living off his fathers bank account, campus celebrity, blah blah blah.... I'm sure you've probably seen this before and it was much better as a high school movie called "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", or was it "Animal House", or maybe this film just tries to lamely take concepts from these better films and update them for a newer audience. Whatever it is it's pure crap.
I've never seen such sick humor outside of a Troma Studios movie. At least with a Troma release you expect lots of feces, vomit, sick humor involving children and a plot as absurd as the premise. But in Van Wilder you get all the vomit, sperm and abuse with a plot they think you might care about. Boy has it good, boy gets told by father that he will not receive more easy money, boy has roaring good time as he crunches many business opportunities to raise money so he can continue with his chosen looserly lifestyle, boy meets overtly-cute pseudo-intelligent girl who wants an interview for the school paper, and wait for the supprise... Boy falls in love with girl who has boyfriend in the snottiest frat on campus. Bet you didn't see that coming. Bet you don't see the friction, pranks and insults that go on between Frat boy and Van Wilder. But then again, I am sure you do.
The shining moments of the movie are only so because they will stay burned in your brain for days afterwards. Take for instance the continual shots of Van's bulldog's obviously fake, over-sized testicles which will fill your screen on occasion. You will get endlessly entertained by swaying testicles, floating hot-tub testicles, Van kissing dog testicles in an early morning supprise. As if the large testicles weren't enough we get one of the most disturbing scenes in movie history when Van plots revenge against his rival, the boyfriend of the main love interest of course, by removing the cream filling of eclairs using gynecological instruments only to be refilled by having his friend masturbate the dog to create a new and exciting filling. But wait! There's more! Once the many eclairs are full and the dogs testicles are now down to a normal, smaller pair, they are placed casually and suspiciously outside the snotty frat-house. Oh the horror as for quite a while we are treated to many frat boys voraciously enjoying every gooey, warm, drippy, clear drop of the dog sperm from the eclair as they make obvious comments like "Wow, they're still warm" and "I think I have had these before". Trust me, much time is dedicated to this scene and.... Damn. I used to love eclairs.
There is a lot of really easy and simple humor in this movie. Let's have an Indian student talk about dirty sex as it will be funny just for that accent. Or maybe we can get elementary school kids drunk and have them projectile vomit. Let's have strippers who fart smoke, that's cool.?? This movie has none of the charm of Beavis and Butthead, none of the stylistic unapologetic crassness of a Troma Film, And the plot is soooooo predictable and merely a rehash of almost every bad college film in history. It's the same plot as One Crazy Summer but not even close to funny and that film used Curtis Armstrong in a way that we all laughed at. In this film he has been degraded to a momentary laugh and no character at all. No body in this film gets fleshed out, the only thing remote to character development is the exchange student gets laid and Van Wilder comes to understand why he hasn't left college in 7 years and trust me that part is about as deep as a dog-bowl.
I wish I had something nice to say about this movie. Even Showgirls is enjoyable for it's embarrassing attempt at seriousness, but this piece of work has no redeeming qualities. The only truly funny moment is as the credits roll and we see some of the behind the scenes pranks with several characters playing up homosexual elements that were only hinted at in the film. I'm sorry but I can't even recommend this film. Avoid it all costs.
I've never seen such sick humor outside of a Troma Studios movie. At least with a Troma release you expect lots of feces, vomit, sick humor involving children and a plot as absurd as the premise. But in Van Wilder you get all the vomit, sperm and abuse with a plot they think you might care about. Boy has it good, boy gets told by father that he will not receive more easy money, boy has roaring good time as he crunches many business opportunities to raise money so he can continue with his chosen looserly lifestyle, boy meets overtly-cute pseudo-intelligent girl who wants an interview for the school paper, and wait for the supprise... Boy falls in love with girl who has boyfriend in the snottiest frat on campus. Bet you didn't see that coming. Bet you don't see the friction, pranks and insults that go on between Frat boy and Van Wilder. But then again, I am sure you do.
The shining moments of the movie are only so because they will stay burned in your brain for days afterwards. Take for instance the continual shots of Van's bulldog's obviously fake, over-sized testicles which will fill your screen on occasion. You will get endlessly entertained by swaying testicles, floating hot-tub testicles, Van kissing dog testicles in an early morning supprise. As if the large testicles weren't enough we get one of the most disturbing scenes in movie history when Van plots revenge against his rival, the boyfriend of the main love interest of course, by removing the cream filling of eclairs using gynecological instruments only to be refilled by having his friend masturbate the dog to create a new and exciting filling. But wait! There's more! Once the many eclairs are full and the dogs testicles are now down to a normal, smaller pair, they are placed casually and suspiciously outside the snotty frat-house. Oh the horror as for quite a while we are treated to many frat boys voraciously enjoying every gooey, warm, drippy, clear drop of the dog sperm from the eclair as they make obvious comments like "Wow, they're still warm" and "I think I have had these before". Trust me, much time is dedicated to this scene and.... Damn. I used to love eclairs.
There is a lot of really easy and simple humor in this movie. Let's have an Indian student talk about dirty sex as it will be funny just for that accent. Or maybe we can get elementary school kids drunk and have them projectile vomit. Let's have strippers who fart smoke, that's cool.?? This movie has none of the charm of Beavis and Butthead, none of the stylistic unapologetic crassness of a Troma Film, And the plot is soooooo predictable and merely a rehash of almost every bad college film in history. It's the same plot as One Crazy Summer but not even close to funny and that film used Curtis Armstrong in a way that we all laughed at. In this film he has been degraded to a momentary laugh and no character at all. No body in this film gets fleshed out, the only thing remote to character development is the exchange student gets laid and Van Wilder comes to understand why he hasn't left college in 7 years and trust me that part is about as deep as a dog-bowl.
I wish I had something nice to say about this movie. Even Showgirls is enjoyable for it's embarrassing attempt at seriousness, but this piece of work has no redeeming qualities. The only truly funny moment is as the credits roll and we see some of the behind the scenes pranks with several characters playing up homosexual elements that were only hinted at in the film. I'm sorry but I can't even recommend this film. Avoid it all costs.