Eurotrip - Movie Review
Rating: 3 out of 5
Who would've thought, in this dreary month of studio-dumped product, that true joy could come in the form of Vinnie Jones and a busload of football hooligans barreling down a French highway in the wrong lane with Vinnie screaming, "Piss off! Drive on the right side of the road!" Well, me neither, but nonetheless Eurotrip manages to be that oddly rare quantity these days: the actually enjoyable stupid comedy.
Starring a bunch of nobodies, leavened with a few clever star cameos, and written and directed by guys you've never heard of, Eurotrip wastes no time with the setup and getting its young stars to Europe. Upon graduating from high school, Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend (Smallville's Kristen Kreuk), who then makes out with the lead singer of the band playing at the graduation party (an oddly-placed Matt Damon, lip-synching a song called "Scotty Doesn't Know"). Simultaneously, Scotty discovers that his German e-mail pen pal, whom he thought was a guy, is actually an extremely hot blonde. Unfortunately, drunk and despondent, he has just told her to stop writing (thinking it was a guy coming on to him). Spiritually devastated, Scotty decides to head across the Atlantic with his friends - requisite crazy guy Cooper (Jacob Pitts), nerd Jamie (Travis Wester), and Jamie's tomboy sister (Michelle Trachtenberg) - to seek the Aryan beauty of his dreams.
In the grand tradition of National Lampoon's European Vacation, the fearless foursome go tripping through a succession of European capitals - really just some landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Parliament crudely Photoshopped into the background of the crude sets, all built in Prague - and have run-ins with cultural stereotypes in each one. To wit: The lads hook up with Vinnie and his "Red Army" of Manchester United thugs in a London pub and hitch a ride to Paris, at which point they try to see the Louvre but are distracted by an irritating street performer, before heading to Amsterdam to eat hash brownies and go to a sex club (where the dominatrix is played by Lucy Lawless, having far too good a time), and so on.
It's all much funnier than such a lame story has any right to be, for a number of reasons. First, the pretty unseasoned cast underplays just about everything; there's no Matthew Lillard or Seann William Scott psychotically mugging the camera. Second, with only a couple exceptions, there are no lengthy setups for the jokes, so the whole thing whips by without much fuss. Third, Rade Serbedzija appears as an Eastern European guy obsessed with Miami Vice, permanently ruining any chance he has of being taken seriously in any of his arthouse roles ever again. And lastly, it actually possesses some of that anarchic spirit which Old School - the last Ivan Reitman-produced, '80s-inspired comedy that Dreamworks released - tried so hard to achieve and never did.
Eurotrip is the opposite of this week's other comedic release, Welcome to Mooseport - whereas the cozy, big-name, lame Mooseport loads just about all its funny moments into a pretty inviting trailer, Eurotrip has one of the worst trailers of the year and easily provides three times the laughs. And you know, any movie where a dream love scene is scored by a David Hasselhoff song deserves your attention.
OK, we're sold.
Facts and Figures
Year: 2004
Run time: 93 mins
In Theaters: Friday 20th February 2004
Box Office Worldwide: $20.8M
Budget: $25M
Production compaines: DreamWorks SKG, Montecito Picture Company, The
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 3 / 5
IMDB: 6.6 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Jeff Schaffer
Producer: Daniel Goldberg, Jackie Marcus, Ivan Reitman
Screenwriter: Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, David Mandel
Starring: Scott Mechlowicz as Scott Thomas, Jacob Pitts as Cooper Harris, Kristin Kreuk as Fiona, Cathy Meils as Mrs. Thomas, Nial Iskhakov as Bert, Michelle Trachtenberg as Jenny, Travis Wester as Jamie, Matt Damon as Donny, Vinnie Jones as Mad Maynard, Diedrich Bader as Mugger, Lucy Lawless as Madame Vandersexxx, Molly Schade as Candy, Jessica Boehrs as Mieke, Jana Pallaske as Anna
Also starring: Fred Armisen, Rade Serbedzija, Daniel Goldberg, Jackie Marcus, Ivan Reitman, Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, David Mandel