“Old School” is Hollywood’s latest attempt to have their cake and eat it too. Forbidden by Congress to market R-Rated movies to underage teens, Hollywood’s solution is to make a college comedy about losers in their thirties. It’s a brilliant move to cover their collective butts, knowing full well that the film would appeal to the very market that has been forbidden to see it.

Then again, I can’t imagine anyone enjoying this low-brow comedy about a group of emotionally stunted men who decide to open a frat house so they can relive their carefree college days. Not only is “Old School” everything you expect it to be, it’s worse. “Animal House” smartly set its college hi-jinks in the past, where they seemed innocuous at best.

By setting “Old School” in present day, the filmmakers (the same jokers who brought us “Road Trip”) create situations that seem childish by today’s standards. It’s even more boorish when you realize that the central characters should know better. Watching thirty-something men participate in college pranks is about as exciting as watching Jessica Tandy in a porno film. Twelve seconds in and you know it’s going to be bad.

Either by choice or through no fault of their own, best friends Mitch (Luke Wilson), Frank (Will Ferrell), and Beanie (Vince Vaughn) wind up renting an old house near the local college campus. When the mean dean (Jeremy Piven, usually on the other side of such shenanigans) threatens to take possession of the property, the three men turn it into a Fraternity for all of the college’s outcasts.

The complications are typical of the genre, albeit aged to accommodate the stars, and there’s very little that’s funny in the script by Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong, painfully executed by Phillips as director. I wouldn’t have minded a smart comedy about men facing a mid-life crisis, but this film is dumber than a doorknob. Save your money and rent “Animal House” instead.

MOLD SCHOOL This “Animal House” wannabe has mange

OLD SCHOOL

Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Juliette Lewis, Ellen Pompeo, Leah Remini. Directed by Todd Phillips. Rated R. 91 Minutes.

LARSEN RATING: $2.00

This entry was posted on Friday, December 13th, 2002 at 2:42 am and is filed under Film Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.