When grouping movies like this together, a catch all like "'80s teen sex comedies" or "boob comedies" or "t'na flicks" is usually used. More often than not, they're labelled as comedies, which really seems to be more out of force of habit, or courtesy on behalf of the viewer, than anything else. I don't know how many times I've watched one of these movies, eg. Joysticks, Hot Moves, Getting It On, and have found myself hard pressed to identify a single moment that could be said to approach anything like humour. We assume they're comedies, I guess, because they're too dumb to be anything else, or, what is more likely, they're carbon copies of other movies - Animal House, Porky's, Police Academy - that actually were, indisputably, supposed to be funny, whether they were or not.
Up the Creek is an exception to this rule. It actually has jokes, and I even laughed a few times! That is so rare I can't even tell you. It has the problem a lot of these boob comedies/t'na flicks have, which is that the premise of the movie doesn't actually leave much room for sex or nudity. That's the main reason we watch them, right? In this one the typical miss-matched group of losers is pitted against the also typical blonde upperclassmen (why must they always be blonde?) for a race down a river. There's the main guy, who smokes thin cigars for no discernible reason, and in some shots looks almost exactly like Paul Rudd. There's also (of course) the nerd, and the main guy from Porky's, who I always despised, but he doesn't do much here to make you hate him one way or the other. I would have preferred if they didn't rely on (yet another) stock character to round out the bunch: the fat guy who can't stop eating. At least he isn't repulsive like the one in Joysticks, but come on. Was this ever funny to anyone?
The upperclassmen - all four of them blonde - try to cheat using high tech (for the time) gadgets like exploding darts and remote controlled airplanes that shoot torpedoes. They have the blessing of an older, rich man who (of course) wears his jumper (sorry, "sweater") tied around his neck.
There is also another group of kooky competitors who are in the movie for comic relief: army men with an over eager commanding officer who also like to blow stuff up. They aren't really differentiated from the rich guys in so doing.
In the end, what you have is a comedy which isn't funny enough to be watched on that merit alone, and doesn't have enough boobs to be worthwhile for anyone else, but at least I laughed a few times, rather than retching horribly as I did with Joysticks.
Up the Creek is an exception to this rule. It actually has jokes, and I even laughed a few times! That is so rare I can't even tell you. It has the problem a lot of these boob comedies/t'na flicks have, which is that the premise of the movie doesn't actually leave much room for sex or nudity. That's the main reason we watch them, right? In this one the typical miss-matched group of losers is pitted against the also typical blonde upperclassmen (why must they always be blonde?) for a race down a river. There's the main guy, who smokes thin cigars for no discernible reason, and in some shots looks almost exactly like Paul Rudd. There's also (of course) the nerd, and the main guy from Porky's, who I always despised, but he doesn't do much here to make you hate him one way or the other. I would have preferred if they didn't rely on (yet another) stock character to round out the bunch: the fat guy who can't stop eating. At least he isn't repulsive like the one in Joysticks, but come on. Was this ever funny to anyone?
The upperclassmen - all four of them blonde - try to cheat using high tech (for the time) gadgets like exploding darts and remote controlled airplanes that shoot torpedoes. They have the blessing of an older, rich man who (of course) wears his jumper (sorry, "sweater") tied around his neck.
There is also another group of kooky competitors who are in the movie for comic relief: army men with an over eager commanding officer who also like to blow stuff up. They aren't really differentiated from the rich guys in so doing.
In the end, what you have is a comedy which isn't funny enough to be watched on that merit alone, and doesn't have enough boobs to be worthwhile for anyone else, but at least I laughed a few times, rather than retching horribly as I did with Joysticks.