“COLLEGE” – 1/10

It’s difficult to pass up smart, funny comedies like “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder” in favor of a crass, crude, cookie-cutter knock-off of last year’s “Superbad,” but I defied such logic by seeing “College.”

The film introduces us to the main characters right off the bat. Kevin (Drake Bell) is a straight-laced, geeky photographer whose ambitions go far beyond the bottle. His life story is written out and just waiting to be told. He loves his friends, loves his girlfriend and has a bright future at Fieldmont University (FU – get it?). But his girlfriend, wanting nothing more than to date a guy who knows how to do a proper keg stand, dumps him. For the rest of the movie, he goes through great lengths to win the girl back.

Accompanied by his friends Carter and Morris (Andrew Caldwell and Kevin Covais), Kevin packs his bags for a weekend of partying and drunken debauchery. Ideally, a movie about the crazy things high school guys do to prove themselves would be funny.

My main gripe with the movie is not only the painfully shallow characters, but the actors portraying them. Bell is a Nickelodeon frontrunner and has yet to prove himself in the context of a R-rated film. Caldwell stinks up the screen and Covais sinks like a stone when given the part of a boy desperate for a scholarship to the university. Meanwhile, the other characters are a combination of one-dimensional comic relief and one-dimensional comic foils, both of which leave viewers feeling a little flat.

The grade of humor is sophomoric at best, as the majority of the gags involve the swapping of bodily fluids and nudity.

Sitting through the movie feels like a war of attrition. I lasted the whole 94 minutes, and regrettably so. If it were possible to be shell-shocked from one movie, it would have to be this one. I went into the theater with lowered expectations, and suffice it to say, those expectations bottomed out.

“College” is a failure in every sense of the word.