Really connected with this movie in the dark ages-1984. It is as much fun as "Blame It On Rio" from the same era. See it!

A year following this frolicking party film, Tim Matheson would ask Chevy Chase to kill him in FLETCH. Chase was supposed to play the role of OTTER in ANIMAL HOUSE (before John Landis objected, not wanting his film to be a SNL skit), a role that made Matheson, a former child actor who was growing into various filler roles (like MAGNUM FORCE), famous. In FLETCH, Matheson is in his forties, a dapper businessman. Here he's a college student, and actually looks much younger than in FLETCH but way too old to be a student. He's one of four slackers stuck in a purgatory college sent on a river rafting race, a win garnering them not only free degrees but a chance to defeat the bad guys: a quartet of perfect looking blonde dudes.Here we have a wacky adventure that spends the first half partying on land and the second half partying downstream. It's splendidly vapid entertainment from start to finish, providing terrific action shots along the roaring rapids. Stephen Furst, another ANIMAL HOUSE alumni, flounders as a fat guy who likes to eat. Dan Monahan ("Pee Wee" of PORKY'S fame) is included but adds little more than a smiling face to the mindless goings-ons throughout. And Jennifer Runyan is fitfully pouty and pretty as Matheson's conquest.

First off, one must put aside the characters played by Matheson and Furst. Matheson reprises his role from Animal House as the "ladies man" who somehow always gets the girl, and always does so with a swagger, smoking, and drink in hand. He also gets beat up by the "preppy squad." It worked much better in Animal House, but he manages to pull it off for most of this movie. Furst, on the other hand, I have no idea what he's supposed to be as Gonzer. Copying Belushi's Bluto from Animal House? That's what comes to mind at first, and a few times throughout the movie, and truthfully, he just does not pull it off. No one can do it the same way, and each time I have seen it tried in various movies it has failed. So Gonzer is just some college guy coasting through life, though this time it's with food and his best friend (in this movie), Irwin. I got a sense from a scene from the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where we have the scene where Gonzer sniffs out his kidnapped friend and chants, Irwin, Irwin.... This movie is your basic college romp with the usual elements. Getting drunk; cheating, no matter what, in order to win; girls taking off their tops; and the usual round of bad guys, who as always never win, since we all want to see the underdog win. Speaking of dogs, if it were not for Chuck, and his voice (done perfectly by the very talented Frank Welker), I would have rated this movie a lot lower. Every scene with Chuck is absolutely hilarious. But overall, the movie was too formulaic, but that's okay, since sometimes movie-goers just want to watch something that does not require too many brain cells. Though this movie might end up killing some... Since there is so much going on, and 2 sets of perfectly good "bad guys" (the military group is a hoot to watch, especially the 4 cadets), and we have some good footage of actual white-water rafting, this movie turns out to be not that bad. Silly, yes. Entertaining, yes. Something to discuss afterward, no.

Why would somebody make a comedy movie that's not funny? Maybe they changed directors mid-stream, or there was a death among the principal technicians and someone else had to edit or whatever. But, this movie is just not funny; even though the script keeps telling you how side-splitting it is, and how you're enjoying it more than you did "Animal House" or "Porky's". Even worldly sophisticates like George Plimpton or Wm F. Buckley like slapstick, sophomoric sex jokes and watching drunk frat-boys being jerks as much as the next guy. We keep looking for some in this poorly-done piece of crap and are more disappointed than the first audience that saw "Plan 9 From Outer Space." The worst scene of the film sticks with me, two beautiful girls enter a nightclub full of elligible dudes and no other women (yes, the story is supposed to be about a whitewater-rafting trip!); they looks about feigning sexual hunger and one of them says "Take NO prisoners". Like the rest of this awful film: is that supposed to be funny? Or sexy? You just feel sorry for the actors, technicians and investors while you're miffed at the directors and producers.