Bovie Movie

Executive producer Ivan Reitman updates the humour of his 1978 production National Lampoon’s Animal House here, but with middling results. There are some raunchy and hilarious moments as college student Breckin Meyer races from New York to Texas with his friends to avert a disaster that would ruin his relationship with his girlfriend, but the movie is a jumbled mess. Several lengthy and redundant subplots keep diverting attention from the central story, and the main characters come across as stereotypes sharing the same “wild” college guy personality, not as individuals. The exception is Tom Green, whose insane character is as unforgettable and hilarious as John Belushi’s Bluto in Animal House, yet he’s put in a supporting role that doesn’t give him a chance to stretch himself. 

Bawdy comedy American Pie was an unexpected box-office hit in 1999 and, amazingly for a sequel, the whole cast returned here, including Seann William Scott, Mena Suvari and the wonderful Eugene Levy as Jason Biggs’s embarrassing dad. The humour remains the same — rude, crude and lewd — as the gang gets together for lots of beer and sex at a beach house following their first year in college. Apple pie lover Jim (Biggs) realises he needs to improve his sexual experience when he hears the beautiful Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) is coming back to town, leading him to track down his only sexual partner (Alyson Hannigan) and ask for her advice. This involves the placing of a trumpet in an unusual location, but it might spoil your enjoyment to say where. Sure, the comedy here isn’t sophisticated and it’s often predictable, but if someone supergluing his hand to his, erm, member gets you giggling, you won’t mind a bit. 

If you thought Dumb and Dumber or There’s Something about Mary plumbed the depths of grossness, hold on to your lunch — you ain’t seen nothing yet. This laughter-packed comedy about four teenage boys who pledge to lose their virginity before prom night has enough crass gags to satisfy the most demanding fans of Porky’s-style farces. Yet it also boasts some spot-on performances from a hip young cast that includes Chris Klein, Mena Suvari, Tara Reid and Natasha Lyonne. The title refers to one of the more eye-widening sequences, in which Jim (Jason Biggs) gets a bit too friendly with his mom’s apple pie. This is definitely not one to show granny, but must-see fare for those not easily offended. 

Manny (Ray Ramono), Sid (John Leguizamo), and Diego (Denis Leary) are currently living in a large valley surrounded by an enormously high ice wall on all sides. When a waterpark begins to form, the trio discovers that the ice wall is actually a wall that is barely holding a massive body of water that could flood the valley to nearly a mile underwater. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them all, but they only have 3 days to make it or die. Manny is having trouble facing the fact that he may be the last mammoth left. Along the way, they meet Ellie (Queen Latifah), a mammoth who thinks she is a possum, and her possum brothers Crash (Sean William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck). As they begin to travel together, Manny learns, with help from Diego and Sid, that having this new mammoth with them, may not be as bad as Manny makes it out to be while they try to escape the oncoming and continually threatening flood. During their journey, Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel has his own hilarious adventures that eventually leads to something else entirely.

This lightweight but amiably daft science-fiction comedy was pitched as Ghost Busters (an earlier Ivan Reitman smash) meets Men in Black. Though it shares those films’ laid-back performances, tongue-in-cheek approach and cute special-effects creations, it lacks some of their wit and sparkle. Fortunately, David Duchovny and Orlando Jones (as college professors), Seann William Scott (as an aspiring fireman) and Julianne Moore (as a government scientist) lay on the comic charm, and the loose Darwinian concept allows for an entertainingly mad menagerie of regenerated digital creatures. However, it says a lot about the evolution of sci-fi cinema since the 1950s that Reitman’s return to the genre is so reliant on computer-generated visuals and obvious scatological humour. 

Writer/director team Drew Daywalt and Dave Schneider take an obvious leaf out of movie magpie Quentin Tarantino’s book for their debut feature. Executively produced by Tarantino’s longtime business partner Lawrence Bender, this highly derivative heist comedy patches together a ragbag of multi-genre clichés, pop culture references and flashy camera techniques. Coming across like Human Traffic meets Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, it follows debt-ridden 20-something Ben McGewen (Seann William Scott) and his slacker pals as they struggle to pull off a bank robbery using a nightclub rave as cover. Throw into the mix a vengeful Mob boss (a blond-haired Lou Diamond Phillips), undercover federal agents, Chinese gangsters and even a couple of transvestites, and you’ve got an engagingly daft, if predictable, feature. Admittedly, it’s not what you’d call demanding viewing, and the reliance on jump cuts, not to mention the pulsating rave soundtrack, won’t be to everybody’s taste. But then if dance music and trippy visuals give you a headache, you’re probably too old for the film anyway. 

The X-Files veteran James Wong makes his feature debut with this entertaining supernatural horror movie, in which the principals’ surnames are taken from legendary genre figures from the past such as Murnau, Lewton and Chaney. It’s as if the teen slasher and the disaster flick had met in the Twilight Zone, as Devon Sawa’s premonition of a midair disaster comes explosively true and Death begins to stalk those who escaped thanks to Sawa’s timely intervention. The premise is flawed and the exposition clumsy, but the methods of demise are as hilarious as they’re ingenious, with Wong more intent on toying with our expectations than providing outright shocks. 

The frequently recurring title characters, employed by writer and director Kevin Smith as supporting players in several of his films, are put to rest with this comedy that focuses on them exclusively. Jay (Jason Mews) and Silent Bob (Smith) are a pair of stoned New Jersey slackers who have long been used as the templates for a pair of popular comic book heroes, Bluntman and Chronic. When they learn that their alter egos are to be turned into a major motion picture without their consent or compensation, the pair sets off for Hollywood to sabotage the production. Along the way, they encounter an ape, a nun (Carrie Fisher), the cast of Scooby-Doo, a Charlie’s Angels-style band of sexy women who use them as stool pigeons in a diamond heist, and an unhinged wildlife ranger (Will Ferrell). They also meet up with some regulars from the Smith canon, including Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), Brian O’Halloran as Dante Hicks, Jason Lee as Banky Edwards, Alanis Morissette as God, and actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in dual roles as themselves and two other familiar characters. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back co-stars numerous other recognizable performers in roles of various sizes, including Shannen Doherty, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Beek, Shannon Elizabeth, Tracy Morgan, Judd Nelson, Chris Rock, and George Carlin, among others.