C+

Indisputably crass but also sporadically funny, “Road Trip”
aims to be this year’s “American Pie,” an ostentatiously raunchy
teen farce liberally spiced with sexual innuendo and drug
humor. But though some may be offended by its emphasis on
erection yocks and sperm banks, it’s surprisingly amiable and
low-key for a picture of its type, not nearly as frenetic and
shrill as you might anticipate. Unfortunately, it’s also
terribly uneven, mostly meandering along sedately and only
occasionally hitting the target. Just think of a modernized
John Hughes teenflick mated with an episode of “National
Lampoon’s Vacation” and spiced up with a healthy dose of
Farrelly Brothers-inspired bits and you’ll have a good idea
of what it’s like.

The picture’s co-produced by Ivan Reitman, who was one of the
brains behind the original “Animal House,” and ultimately its
spirit can be traced back to that John Belushi vehicle. The
story involves Josh (Breckin Meyer), a pleasant but pallid
freshman at a college in upstate New York who mistakenly sends
a video cassette documenting his one-night stand with a
beautiful co-ed to his long-time girlfriend, a student in
Texas. Desperate to retrieve the tape, he undertakes a
weekend drive to the south along with two buddies, would-be
Lothario E.L. (Seann William Scott) and brainy Rubin (Paul
Costanzo); the three are necessarily joined by the obligatory
nerd, Kyle (DJ Qualls, in a role modelled on Alan Ruck’s
Cameron in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), whose car they must
commandeer for the journey. A minor subplot concerns Kyle’s
extra-strict father (Fred Ward) who comes to believe that his
son’s been kidnapped and tracks the quartet to Austin, with
predictable results. Other strands of the script involve
Barry (Tom Green), a long-enrolled student who’s left behind
in New York to feed Rubin’s pet snake (and who narrates the
entire tale in flashback to some campus visitors), and the
efforts of the required villain, a philosophy T.A. played by
Anthony Rapp, to sabotage Josh’s chances of passing a required
course because he’s after Beth (Amy Smart), the girl on the
tape who’s smitten with Josh and searches for him while he’s
away.

All this might seem terribly complicated, but as staged by
feature neophyte Todd Phillips (who made the controversial
documentary “Frat House”), it comes across as laid-back and
unforced, sometimes even dilatory. The script’s format allows
for a series of fairly random episodes–involving, for
instance, a black fraternity house, a school for the blind,
Rubin’s randy pot-smoking grandfather, and a surly motel clerk
played by Andy Dick, whose protestations that he has nothing
to do with drugs elicits one of the film’s biggest laughs.
Periodically things also move back to Ithaca, where Barry,
made suitably creepy by Green, finds himself frustrated in
his attempts to get the snake he’s sitting to eat a proffered
mouse. Individually these scenes provide some scattered
amusement, but they don’t build particularly well (the big
finale is a serious letdown); and a few of the sequences,
especially those involving poor Kyle’s losing his virginity
and being badly treated by a waiter, skirt the line between
grossly funny and simply gross.

On the other hand, the young stars are likable enough. Meyer
makes a colorless hero, but Scott affects a pleasant smirk and
Costanzo offers an acceptably Seinfeldesque turn. Qualls lays
on the simpleton shtick a trifle thick, but he eventually
earns our sympathy, and Smart is as attractive (though less
well-used) as in “Outside Providence” (a considerably better
school comedy, incidentally). Dick has his moments, but
both Ward and Rapp are wasted in by-the-numbers bits. Green
is wisely kept to a minor role; his weirdly smug persona
would become grating if it were the center of attention, but
on a suppprting level it affords some chuckles.

“Road Trip” is no great shakes, but it’s certainly not as bad
as its trailers prophesied–they intimated a journey to hell.
If you don’t mind some gross-out jokes, lots of suggestiveness
and a few side-trips that don’t pay off, this affably
episodic effort should give you a genial enough ride.