It’s not like we go to a film like EUROTRIP expecting a considered examination of the human condition. We don’t go for a dazzling display of verbal acuity and trenchant wit. We don’t even go for the lovely scenery, though Czech Republic, which stands in for all of Europe except The Louvre and Amsterdam, does have its moments. Actually, we don’t go to a film like this at all unless we’re reviewing it and the screening is free. And even then, we’ve paid too much. Let me put it this way, the most tender moment of romance to be found in this steaming pile of celluloid is a vigorous sexual congress performed in a Catholic church’s confessional.
For the makers of this film, the same people who brought you OLD SCHOOL, Europe is another place to drink too much, throw up, and stumble across ugly naked guys. Very ugly naked guys. Shown in all their full-frontal imperfect splendor. So ugly that they make the four pals who are the subject of the adventure run screaming from the nude beach in exactly the way I wanted to run from the theater where this film was showing. Of the four, two (Michelle Trachtenberg, and Jacob Pitts) are looking to have wild European sex, one (Travis Wester) is the regulation geek, and one (Scott Mechlowicz) is tracking down his one true love, a German girl who was on the receiving end of the drunken e-mail he sent a week earlier on the night he graduated from high school and was dumped by his girlfriend. But that’s not important. It isn’t even germane to the reason for making this film. That would be doing the urinating, vomiting, drooling, and fornicating-on-an-appetizer-buffet-table jokes in the first fifteen minutes of screen time and then trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the film’s running time of less than two hours. While the film never surpasses, or rather overcomes, those moments, it does equal them, over and over and over again.
In order to fulfill that mission, our gang runs afoul of soccer hooligans, dominatrixes, thieves, pervs, and the Swiss Guard as they make their way across Europe, in the process confirming for everyone involved, including the audience, that the myth of the Ugly American isn’t. Though, to be fair, in order for the viewers of this film to learn a little about the cultures of other countries, our travelers get snockered on absinthe instead of their usual brewskis during their detour to Easter Europe.
Do we care about the performances that give amateur a bad name? Do we care about the jokes show a complete disregard for the audience’s ability to discern humor? Do we care why it is that in this film signs in Europe are in English first and then the local language or why there is ketchup on a table in a French restaurant that isn’t McDonald’s? Of course not. Though, in all candor, we did take a perverse pleasure in seeing the annoying French mime get taken out.
EUROTRIP will soon fade away, leaving in its wake a bad taste and a slimy grease spot. But not soon enough.
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