Van Wilder: Freshman Year - Unrated

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre comedy Starring Linden Ashby, Kurt Fuller,, Jonathan Bennett, Steve Talley, Kristin Cavallari Directed by Harvey Glazer Publisher Paramount External Links

Action films, horror movies and dramatic chick-flicks can sometimes be so bad that they are actually quite hilarious.  However, when a comedy movie reaches bad-status, the audience is left dramatically horrified wanting to take action against the director. Van Wilder Freshman Year is a comedy that fits this description.

The original National Lampoon's Van Wilder, starring Ryan Reynolds and Tara Reid, was well received and became quite popular after its release in 2002.  The comedy followed the 7th year senior, Van Wilder, who was making college his career, residing as  king of cool, girls, and all social realms at his university.  It's prequel, Van Wilder Freshman Year, is aimed at those few people who asked how Van became 'cool' in the first place… However, this film makes those people wish they never asked. The movie was made independently of National Lampoons, understandably, considering National Lampoon themselves were already embarrassed of their own unnecessary sequel, Van Wilder II: Rise of Taj.

Low-budget-sequel-enthusiasts might recognize Jonathan Bennett, the actor playing freshman Van Wilder, from other equally bad sequels such as Dukes of Hazzard: the Beginning and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.  He opens in the first scene setting the tone of the movie quite accurately with his high school graduation speech, loaded with awkward sexual innuendoes about his many female conquests including embarrassing puns such as;  "there are so many warm mammories" or "graduating summa-CUM-laude."  The speech is given while Van's Co-Valedictorian is "showing her appreciation of Van" under his graduation robes.  If this seems crude, not to worry, it only gets worse.

Van ends up at Coolige College quickly making friends with his roommate, a stereotypical laid back Rastafarian, and an awkward sexually frustrated Chinese exchange student, both with offensively fake accents.  The three quickly discover that their school is strangely religious and has ban kissing, drinking and doing drugs, in cooperation with the script writter's ban on a coherent or original plot.  Van finds himself instantly on top of the social ladder with only ROTC military villains, and Commander/Dean Charles Reardon, to stand in his way.  The Dean, a combination of Dean Wormer from Animal House and Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller spends the movie trying to devise a plot to kick Wilder out of school.  Meanwhile, Wilder teaches his school what "college" is all about: partying, dropping one-liners and constant unnecessary nudity (several factors indicate that the director, Harvey Glazer, probably had not attended college… or film school).

As if this wasn't enough, romance emerges into the "plot" as well, when Van falls for his drill sergeant Kaitlin Hays, played by Kristin Cavallari, the borderline celebrity whose "acting?" career brought her fame playing herself on MTV's Laguna Beach.  Van battles with Kaitlin's gun-loving military boyfriend to win her affection, trading pranks and loosely thought out schemes.  The plot needs to be explained no further as it predictably follows that of every other "college" movie.

Considering the simplistic story line, line-fed actors, and constant nudity, the movie was surprisingly long, lasting 98 minutes.  Your DVD player may even thank you for not subjecting it to playing this movie.  However, if you are in the mood for turning your brain completely off and zoning out to a flick loaded with boobies and cheap thrills, it might be worth considering.