Freshman Year is the third installment of the very funny and very popular Van Wilder and is directed by Harvey Glazer. It is the prequel to the original series, Party Liaison, and stars Jonathan Bennet as Wilder, Kurt Fuller as Dean Reardon and Kristin Cavallari as Kaitlin; Wilder's love interest. The movie revolves around Coolidge College campus.Wilder just having graduated from high school follows the family tradition and attends Coolidge. Upon arrival he discovers that his father's fun loving school is not longer what it used to be. The institution has become militarized by Dean Reardon who seems to hate the Wilder's and makes Van a target.Van's attempt to party seems to go wrong as the institute has become chastised and all manner of earthly pleasures are considered a sin. His first attempt leads him to the Daughters in Christs' Kingdom (D.I.C.K) having misguided by the acronyms. However, Van fights back with a 'God works in mysterious ways' prank.Reardon suspects Van of being behind the prank but cannot prove it. As a result he forces Van to join the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) he commands and orders his 'dogs', Lieutenant Dirk Arnold (Steve Talley) and Corporal Benedict (Nic Nac) to crack Van. Van responds with his own brand of outrageously comedic revenge.For those seeking originality, you will be disappointed. This installment follows the first two in quirky detail. The joke and punch lines is basically a carbon copy of its predecessors. And you may also note the use of high tech gadgets that were unavailable in the first installment, notably the iPhone.Overall, this is great movie to hang out with friends and have a laugh.

This movie was amazing, all i expected from a Van Wilder movie. We know how he met his dog, we can figure why he need to replace his assistant, and we can know why he became master of Coolidge. The only thing we are not sure is how he quit the girl he was with, and that can be explain by her having to go to officer school. Seriously i love Reynolds, but if we have to have him replace, im OK its gonna be by that dude in this movie, he did a fine job. Having Zacharia(supernatural), Dwight Stifler(American Pie) and that other fat dude from Beta House in the movie sure help make this a freaking damn good comedy. Im totally in the favor of having this as a Van Wilder Sequel or Prequel as you wanna name it.

This is the first Van Wilder film I saw. It is like American Pie but not as dirty.Seeing him in Lovewrecked, Mean Girls I was surprised to see Jonathan here. His looks is too clean-cut to be convincing as horny desperate to sleep with any girl, fun-loving party sort of guy. He did try his best but he just comes across to me as a sweet and adorable guy. With a body like that, he could get any girl he wants.The girls are nothing much to look at except when they go topless. No girl looks pretty enough to me except they all have big tits and are willing to strip. Or maybe I just don't get it as I'm not a guy.It is nice to see Steven Talley who is a really funny and talented comedian but not as good-looking as the first time I saw him (in American Pie Beta House), can't explain why :)Nothing much happens in the film. The jokes are lame to OK funny. It is nice to see Jonathan gets his girl in the happy ending. A good rental.

"Van Wilder" (2002) was an excellent comedy following in the footsteps of "American Pie" and "Road Trip". It had hilarious performances from Ryan Reynolds, Kal Penn and Tara Reid. "Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj" (2006): No Ryan Reynolds this time, but Kal Penn returns who is a talented comedian (Harold & Kumar 1-2). Not as good as the first one, but again very funny with a good story, effective jokes and funny characters. In Part 2 they were smart enough not to bring back characters if they did not have the original actors. That can't be said about Part 3.. "Van Wilder: Freshman Year" (2009) makes that mistake, but it's just one of many. It is supposed to be some kind of prequel although it makes no sense at all. The unknown actor looks at least a little bit like Ryan Reynolds but he's not convincing - and worse.. not funny at all. They even replaced his father (Tim Matheson in the original), this time played by Linden Ashby (soap actor and do not forget his rock bottom performance as a wannabee John McClane in the terrible Die Hard clone "Blast" with Rutger Hauer). His part is so little, no idea why that character (they do NOT look alike) had to be in here. But no idea about what real fun is either; this is just forced, cheap TV-comedy series humor. After half an hour, I knew it wasn't gonna get any better, It is just bad and unfunny from the start. I loved the first three American Pie's: I hated the rest. I loved the first Road Trip: I hated the second one. I loved the first two Van Wilder's: I hated the third. If they make another one, I will not even give it a try, "Write that down" (Ryan Reynolds, Van Wilder 2002).