First there was “Animal House,” then came “PCU.”
Now, National Lampoon brings us “Van Wilder,” an updated image of coed college life, newly released on video and DVD.
Imagine going to school where beautiful women never study and never wear clothes, where Jell-O shots are considered breakfast, lunch and dinner and sexual antics abound.
Wilder, played by Ryan Reynolds, is the classic kid that never wants to grow up, but must when his daddy cuts him off.
Wilder meets his match when star student journalist Gwen Person, played by the breathy Tara Reid, is ordered by her editor to write an expose about the big man on campus.
Reid is Wilder’s ideal woman: beautiful, blonde, white and expressionless.
The rare entertaining moments in “Van Wilder” are overshadowed by its childish and predictable humor.
Bodily fluids, nerds and perky women are everywhere.
True to the National Lampoon tradition, teenage boys and girls are presented with a distorted example of college life, where pranks, like an eclair filled with semen in place of custard, or Exlax in a protein shake, are normal and acceptable.
With more films like “Van Wilder” portraying a party-till-you-puke picture of coed life, Mills might increase enrollment further.
