When you've got films like The Hangover and its equally hilarious Hangover 2 under your belt, people expect a lot from your next project. And Todd Phillips latest project is Project X. And the film studio financing Project X is very keen for viewers to know that Todd Phillips is involved in this project, Project X.
Sadly though, Project X needed more than a respected director and a few funny gags to save it from the mauling it has suffered at the hands of the press. The film follows the story of a teenage boy throwing a house party whilst his parents are away. with, of course, disastrous consequences when the whole thing gets out of hand. Its low-brow American Pie style of comedy hasn't gone down well with the reviewers, though and what was supposed to be 'every parent's worst nightmare' seems to have turned into 'every movie critic's worst nightmare.' A review from Empire magazine dismisses the movie, which is billed as being packed with debauchery and scandal, as "Witless, charmless, teen twaddle," whilst Robbie Collin, for the Daily Telegraph calls it "flamboyantly loathsome on every imaginable level and a great many unimaginable ones besides."
Time Out's Cath Clarke was equally scathing, saying "It raised my moral outrage heckles in ways I didn't think possible." Essentially, Project X is 88 minutes of 'party porn,' revisiting the usual teen movie cliches of sex, alcohol and more sex and the critics have rallied together like angry neighbours to get its party shut down early.