'Eurotrip' review

Originally written May 26th/2004

Rating: **1/2 out of ****

Jeff Schaffer's "Eurotrip" is a raunchy, teen sex romp in the tradition of "American Pie" and "Road Trip". The problem is that those films were better. "Eurotrip" is not a bad movie, at least not in my opinion. The creators just did not play out their idea well enough.

"Eurotrip" begins with the character of Scotty (played by newcomer Scott Thomas) who had just graduated high school and is planning to go to med school. At the graduation ceremony his long-term girlfriend Fiona (Kristin Kreuk of “Smallville” dumps him. That night at the graduate party, we find out that Fiona has been sleeping with every guy in Scott's high school. In fact, the band at the party has a theme song called "Scotty Doesn't Know" - one of the funniest scenes in the film. Anyway, Scott has a German pen pal named Mike. One night in a drunken stupor Scott finds out that Mike wants to meet him and becomes scared, thinking that Mike could be a sexual predator. Scott emails Mike and says to leave him alone. We later learn that Mike is actually Mieke (pronounced "Meeka") and she is a very attractive girl that wants to meet Scott. Therefore, Scott sets off with his friend Cooper (played by Jacob Pitts in the common Stifler-like role) to Europe to find Mieke. While there, they meet up with Jamie and Jenny, fraternal twins who are "the worst twins ever".

It is a funny premise; however, "Eurotrip" has its faults. Its main fault is that it is too disjointed. The characters seem to be jumping from one gag scene to another, without "flowing". Although funny, most of those gags are pointless. Such examples are, a scene where Scotty has a fight with a man doing the robot in front of the Leuvre. Perhaps the most gratuitous and pointless scene is one in which Cooper tricks a topless girl into massaging her own breasts in front of him. This scene is not only pointless, but also insulting to the girl because she not only has her breasts on screen for about 5 minutes, but her character is made out to be stupid. She becomes embarrassed and enraged at Cooper AFTER showing her breasts to Cooper for 5 minutes or more. It is as if someone turned on a light switch in the girls' head making her realize "Hey, I'm naked!"

Eurotrip's characters are likeable and, at times charming and entertaining. Despite this, most of their misfortunes they encounter are their own faults. For example, there is a scene where the group of friends is on a train and they meet a creepy Italian man who proceeds to molest them with little consequence. Everyone I asked about this scene said that the man would have been beaten if it had have been them on the train. There is another scene where Jamie is robbed of everything he owns because he is receiving oral sex from a German girl and is in too much bliss to care. Now, receiving oral sex could distract someone from many things, but enough to not care that they are being robbed. I do not find that believable.

Now, because Jamie was robbed of all their possessions, the group is stuck with no tickets, passports, or money and they desperately have to get to Berlin and they only have a little under $2 in American cash. However, thanks to the incredible exchange rate, the group is able to go on a swanky rich adventure. It never occurs to them that if the exchange rate is so great, they could buy tickets directly to Berlin. Instead, the rich adventure is a segue to another disjointed scene involving a rave and Absinthe which leads to the twins making out with one another.

The writers of "Eurotrip" seem to have been influenced heavily by "Road Trip". Both films have very similar plots and stories and even characters. The problem is that all those things were better in "Road Trip". The writers would have been well advised to give their script the same characters from "Road Trip" and call it "Road Trip 2: Eurotrip!" and it actually would have been better and perhaps more believable because we know that the characters in "Road Trip" have done this sort of thing before.

"Eurotrip" is not a complete waste of time. I know it sounds as if I am trashing it quite a bit, and I am. However, I give it 2 and a half out of 4 stars because as a mindless comedy, it seems to work. Not as well as others have, but it still does. That is the redeeming fact of "Eurotrip"; it does not pretend to be something it is not. It does not pretend to be smart when it is not. It is what it is, and that is a dirty teenage sex romp. It doesn't show us what looks like a dirty teen sex romp on the trailers, with exposure to sex, but then the sex is toned way down in the film, as other films have in the past. This film has an R rating, deserves an R rating and makes no qualms about having an R rating. In fact, it celebrates it.