“Wow… if he’s here, who’s running hell?”

Kyle’s rating: Apparently college has evolved

Kyle’s review: I love Animal House and PCU. I love them! They are exactly how college SHOULD be. Unfortunately, real life seldom follows my twisted dream-logic, and as a result I have never attended or even visited a college campus where any of these wonderful films could conceivably occur. There are cliques of students who grow into inseparable friends, there are beer parties with occasional nude participants, there is free sex, there is paid sex, and there is a whole lot of complaining about the administration.

But for when it comes to mastermind students actually taking a stand and attempting to DO something, be it take over the school or just be the ultimate “go to” guy, well, I haven’t met many myself. I guess I’ve seen a few underground newspapers lampooning admins, and heard legends about the guy who could drink anyone under the table yet never appeared drunk himself. But mostly, even the most charismatic classmates I’ve met have still struggled to get other students involved in doing anything. Most college kids nowadays just want to get their degrees and get out, though parties are always do-able, and the most sophisticated group activity many will participate in is pushing a sofa into the road and setting it on fire. And then they don’t even stay to dance around it; they just go back in. Come on, kids! Tribal dance!

So the general college apathy I’ve encountered doesn’t affect my love and respect for past college movies, but it does color my interpretations of modern college movies. And so we get to Van Wilder, which as a younger lad I would have really dug but as a 10-year college junior, I’m a little too jaded and loaded with homework to get too excited. Even the presence of the Great One, Tim Matheson, couldn’t knock this one out of the park! But it is a very nice try.

A big part of this film just seems to be out-grossing the competition with an excess of bodily fluids and an over-emphasis of the Neanderthal “I’m a bad guy!”-ness of the villains (as in Animal House, the bad guys are the uptight rich white fraternity. Actually, this is pretty true-to-life!). It’s a shame, because Ryan Reynolds is pretty good as a likeable good will ambassador who cares about everyone and has wonderful innate organization skills as long as someone is around to dictate his thoughts. Okay, Van Wilder is me. I liked that part a lot, because I was like “Hey, that’s me!”

But Tara Reid is frightening, and I don’t know if it was the lights or what but she seriously appeared to be made of shiny plastic material here. If we all chip in, maybe we can buy her some moisturizer and sunblock and that might help. I just don’t know.

And as nice and friendly as Van Wilder, I just couldn’t see him overcoming student apathy to become a celebrated savior of the masses. If they had made this a small scale story I would have loved it, but once they bring in the usual “bad guys are against Van but the whole college comes out in his support and he wins to the sound of a big cheer!” I rapidly lost interest.

Reynolds is fantastic and as long as we get to see him playing his games, it’s good times. But no Reynolds = no fun. I wouldn’t follow Van Wilder into the gates of hell (an actual dorm room on my campus, though doesn’t everyone have one?) as I would follow Bluto or Otter or Droz, but I wouldn’t mind hanging out with him for a weekend or something. But leave that bulldog at home, please! *ewww*