National Lampoon's Van WilderEconomically speaking, most parents would likely prefer to have a permanent high school student as a child than a permanent college student.Unfortunately, the father in this comedy has the latter.After seven-years of loafing through college, Van Wilder's (Ryan Reynolds) dad (Tim Matheson) has enough and cuts off all funding to his son.Forced to go it alone, Van makes an agreement with school heads that he can cram a year's worth of information into his head in six days, and finally graduate.But that won't be easy, as Van is in a prank-off with a fraternity brother that doesn't like him hitting on his girlfriend Gwen (Tara Reid).More gross-out comedy than genuine laughs, for some reason Van Wilder has had a cult-like following that relished its over-the-top sexual perversions, and revel in the leads blasé nature.Incidentally, the ultimate college prank is convincing students to buy textbooks. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

I spotted this (apparently National Lampoon series continuing) teen movie because of the one or two good names in the cast, but also because it had such a low rating, one star out of five, I was intrigued to know why, from director Walt Becker (Wild Hogs). Basically Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) is the most popular student in Coolidge College, and has been for the last seven years, as he puts on the highly successful parties and fund-raisers, but his father Vance Sr. (National Lampoon's Animal House's Tim Matheson) is concerned for his eduction. Van is a little thrown back by his father stopping his tuition fee, meaning he has to find his own ways to make money, but the party throwing continues, and he is met by sexy student Gwen Pearson (American Pie's Tara Reid) who is writing a paper on him and his antics. As she can't get very close to Van himself, she asks all the questions to people he knows in the college, including new Indian foreign exchange student assistant Taj Mahal Badalandabad (Harold & Kumar's Kal Penn), and this only makes him mad. Van does however find an attraction towards Gwen, and he is trying his flirting techniques to score with him, but she already has a boyfriend, snobby and rude president of the student union and the leader of a fraternity, Richard Bagg (Daniel Cosgrove). Val is put under much more pressure when his medical school finals are coming up, and he has to study hard to get a good average grade to graduate and leave college on a high. In the end, Gwen realises what her boyfriend Richard is doing to Van, and his infidelity, so she get her revenge filling his protein shake with a powerful laxative, Van does pass his final paper, and he and she celebrate graduation and embrace. Also starring Teck Holmes as Hutch, Deon Richmond as Mini Cochran and Alex Burns as Gordon. The cast, even though with some good names, don't really add anything, the scripting is one of the worst I have ever seen, and the comedy full of outrageously gross moments is disgusting and unfunny, especially ageist snogging of a student, large dog genitals, and dog semen filled pastries, only the laxative scene made me giggle for the fart noises, otherwise it is an absolutely awful comedy. Poor!

During his seventh year at "Coolidge" college, handsome Ryan Reynolds (as Van Wilder) gets his tuition cut off by father Tim Matheson (as Van Wilder Sr.), an embarrassed "Animal House" (1978) alumni. When Mr. Matheson finds his son wearing a women's negligee at an underwear swap party, he fears Reynolds might be gay; obviously, Matheson doesn't catch on very fast anymore. However, Mr. Reynolds is enterprising young man; he uses his supposedly large genitalia to stay in school...Arousing blonde reporter Tara Reid (as Gwen Pearson) does a story on Reynolds. He turns from promiscuous and partying to thinking Ms. Reid might be that "special someone." For some reason, Reid's premature ejaculating boyfriend Daniel Cosgrove (as Richard Bagg) maintains a hold on Reid. For what it's worth, Mr. Cosgrove actually performs his role well. "Van Wilder" delivers lots of fart and balls humor, some beer and breasts, a few gay jokes... all climaxing in a huge dump.** Van Wilder (4/4/02) Walt Becker ~ Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Daniel Cosgrove, Tim Matheson

College student and party enthusiast Van Wilder (Reynolds) is put in his place by an unavailable up and coming reporter (Reid) There have been many attempts at conveying the real life portrayal of school life in cinema over the last 10 years. From the largely successful crude American Pie to the down right tough nut drama Kidulthood there are many versions of how college life is seen. To generalise, most American films centre on the comedy genre when tackling these stories whilst British cinema aims to portray realism, and at the end of the day everything is exaggerated, but is marvellously funny and entertaining nonetheless, and the same goes for this almost American Pie riff.Ryan Reynolds is the main reason to watch as with all his previous roles he brings that contained side of cheekiness to his character and executes his comic timing to perfection with some well spoken phrases and equally amusing physical attributes. Though his comedy isn't on the brilliance of Just friends, he generates a feeling of coolness and gets the laughs that this genre always needs.As these are films about aging students, there are always repetitive ideologies encoded for the preferred reading. So we have sex, parties, losing virginity and "complicated" relationships. If you thought American Pie was crude, wait till this hits your screen. There is one particular moment that is irrevocable. Lets just say a dog and a spatula get a less than pleasant introduction, not to mention Wilder's sacrifice to get a form to carry on learning. It is definitely crude with that sense of physical comedy that we teens apparently love so much.As there is plenty of comedy there is still enough room to match the cheesy conventional plot that follows the rule book practically word for word. Well, to be fair the plot is springy because of the comedy input, but once more in this genre does a guy have to like the one girl he can't have and it's only going to end up one way. If this was tweaked a bit to add some surprise and energy we may have had a different feeling come the credits and feeling rewarded for the film's diversity, but once more we pay money to see the same concept repeated except with some fresh faces.Apart from the weighing down involvement of the conventional romance ideology, this is a very enjoyable picture. The characters, all pretty much stereotypes, bring their own spice to the plot, especially the teacher and Wilder's assistant Taj. We have the geeks, the jocks, the scientists, the swingers and so forth. All familiar and therefore its easy to transfer into entertainment. There is no silly character development and we are left with simply the person on screen with their own agenda.Van Wilder is a simple crude story wrapped with a wonderful central performance by Reynolds. Where this 2001 picture won't give fans the same satisfaction and buoyancy as American Pie or Euro trip, there is enough crude comedy to reward the target youthful audience for their money.