Caution: spoilers.
Before I begin, a few points about taste and suitability. Firstly, this film is crude, childish, and by many people's standards obscene: it features bare breasts, swearing and numerous attempts at pre-marital sex. Secondly, if you were expecting Citizen Kane, they you have bought the wrong video. Direction and cinematography are not the main aims of this work of art. Humour, however, is.
And it is funny. Puerile, base, vulgar and unkind, but funny. Characters get things jammed up their bottoms, glue hands to genitals, and more. It is like a Donald McGill seaside postcard, enlarged and moved to America.
The plot is simple: five friends sit in a beach-house planning a party, each with his own girl problems to solve come party time. Next door are two pretty, tactile ladies who might be lesbians. Comedy ensues.
The film divides itself between our hero, Jim, preparing for the arrival of a Russian girl who he believes to be a "sure thing", and the others in the house. There are two serious subplots: one of the friends has a girlfriend who lives far away, and another is trying to get back with his ex.
Much of the comedy relies on whether you can stand the characters and stomach what happens to them. The odious Stifler, for instance, seems too much a bully to be likable, and the scenes where he is humiliated gain something from this. Jim, on the other hand, is basically decent, and whilst laughable, we want him to succeed.
I found the two serious subplots of little interest: I am older than the ideal age-group, and they don't really seem very applicable to me now. Were I 18, they might well do, although they do weigh the comedy down. Also, perhaps deliberately, the character chasing his ex appears simply wretched rather than likable. Still, viewers may learn something.
Which brings me onto the fact that this film is, basically, moral. Forget the sex and farting jokes: at base, the film is broadly correct about the way men and women behave, and falls on the side of decency. The central relationship between Jim and Michelle (an excellent turn from Alyson Hannigan, at once weird, funny and sympathetic) is sweetness with a thin veneer of crudity, and shows the real heart of the film. Excellent also is Eugene Levy as Jim's Dad, embarrassing and hilarious, but protective and sincere.
For silly, throwaway entertainment, this scores highly. If you are a vicar or Pauline Kael, don't bother, but if you are looking for a film that is simple fun, this does well. The characters and subplots make it uneven - I often ended up waiting for the action to switch to better characters - but there are moments of real hilarity so long as you can tolerate the rudeness that comes with them.
This film will inevitably offend and disgust more prudish viewers, but for someone willing to watch silly vulgarity without throwing all moral sense to the wind, it is one of the classics of its type. Besides, morality is what you make it. To my mind, compared to the gross, gloating, sado-masochistic excess of The Passion of The Christ, it seems wholesome indeed.
Before I begin, a few points about taste and suitability. Firstly, this film is crude, childish, and by many people's standards obscene: it features bare breasts, swearing and numerous attempts at pre-marital sex. Secondly, if you were expecting Citizen Kane, they you have bought the wrong video. Direction and cinematography are not the main aims of this work of art. Humour, however, is.
And it is funny. Puerile, base, vulgar and unkind, but funny. Characters get things jammed up their bottoms, glue hands to genitals, and more. It is like a Donald McGill seaside postcard, enlarged and moved to America.
The plot is simple: five friends sit in a beach-house planning a party, each with his own girl problems to solve come party time. Next door are two pretty, tactile ladies who might be lesbians. Comedy ensues.
The film divides itself between our hero, Jim, preparing for the arrival of a Russian girl who he believes to be a "sure thing", and the others in the house. There are two serious subplots: one of the friends has a girlfriend who lives far away, and another is trying to get back with his ex.
Much of the comedy relies on whether you can stand the characters and stomach what happens to them. The odious Stifler, for instance, seems too much a bully to be likable, and the scenes where he is humiliated gain something from this. Jim, on the other hand, is basically decent, and whilst laughable, we want him to succeed.
I found the two serious subplots of little interest: I am older than the ideal age-group, and they don't really seem very applicable to me now. Were I 18, they might well do, although they do weigh the comedy down. Also, perhaps deliberately, the character chasing his ex appears simply wretched rather than likable. Still, viewers may learn something.
Which brings me onto the fact that this film is, basically, moral. Forget the sex and farting jokes: at base, the film is broadly correct about the way men and women behave, and falls on the side of decency. The central relationship between Jim and Michelle (an excellent turn from Alyson Hannigan, at once weird, funny and sympathetic) is sweetness with a thin veneer of crudity, and shows the real heart of the film. Excellent also is Eugene Levy as Jim's Dad, embarrassing and hilarious, but protective and sincere.
For silly, throwaway entertainment, this scores highly. If you are a vicar or Pauline Kael, don't bother, but if you are looking for a film that is simple fun, this does well. The characters and subplots make it uneven - I often ended up waiting for the action to switch to better characters - but there are moments of real hilarity so long as you can tolerate the rudeness that comes with them.
This film will inevitably offend and disgust more prudish viewers, but for someone willing to watch silly vulgarity without throwing all moral sense to the wind, it is one of the classics of its type. Besides, morality is what you make it. To my mind, compared to the gross, gloating, sado-masochistic excess of The Passion of The Christ, it seems wholesome indeed.