Movie Review: National Lampoon's Adam & Eve
National Lampoon has brought us some amazing comedies over the years, such as Animal House, Vacation, and Van Wilder, as well as a few average comedies, such as Loaded Weapon 1, Senior Trip, and Black Ball. And now another National Lampoon movie will soon be released... and it falls into neither of these categories. It's not a bad movie per se (yes, it's "per se", not "per say" or "persay"), it's just that it isn't very funny. And I'm not sure quite when it will be released. I thought it was supposed to be September 2nd, and then September 23rd, but now I can't find any release date. Perhaps they're trying to re-edit it in order to actually put more than a couple laughs in there? Problem is, they'd need to do more than fool around with editing, they'd actually need to add to the story and do more filming in order to make this one hit the funny bone.
The basic story is about two college students, one is a dashing, sensitive aspiring musician named Adam. The other is a upstanding, sexy, aspiring sports photographer named Eve. The two meet one day when Adam sees this beautiful woman walking across campus and jumps out of his car to go introduce himself. They then coincidentally meet again later that night when Adam delivers a pizza to Eve's sorority house. From there, he politely whisks her away on their first date, and they quickly become a lovely looking couple. About nine months later... no, she's not pregnant! Shut up and let me continue. Now, about nine months later, which is oh, say about ten minutes into the film thanks to a montage sequence, we see that they are not only still together, but are actually in love. Ahhhh. And here's were we get to the real plot of the movie.
Eve is a virgin, and isn't ready to give that up yet. Now, Adam loves her and completely respects her decision... except that she won't provide any reason for not wanting to be intimate with him. What I mean is, she says it's not a religious thing, and she says that she's not necessarily waiting for her wedding night, so all that she really comes up with is that she's waiting for when it feels "right". This obviously frustrates Adam, and really, can you blame the guy? I mean, if he just knew that they wouldn't have sex until they were married, then there would be no expectation and everything would be fine. But instead she's basically teasing the poor guy. Will tonight be the night? Nope, sorry. Oh, everything's perfect, it looks like tonight will be the night! Nope.
And that's pretty much the movie right there. The few comedy scenes we get all involve Adam's disgusting sorority brothers, all of which live in a filthy pigsty of a house. And this place is truly nasty, with so much garbage all over the ground that you can't even see the floor. Okay, let me give you an example of something funny... one of guys bites into a pizza slice that was crawling with ants, and then spits it out back into the box. Another example? Shaved pubes in the sink. Getting the idea? There are no wacky schemes here or elaborate plans. And as if it wasn't already plain enough, it also follows the overly used standard plot device of they break up for some reason, they both miss each other a lot, and eventually get back together realizing their mistakes. Anyone could see that coming from a mile away. Isn't there some kind of twist you could have thrown in there?
What else can I say? Um... there's a little nudity, though mostly just seen on their television set. There's a cat fight, but no clothes come of. What else? The acting was decent enough. I really felt the chemistry between the two leads. That always helps in a movie, though when it comes down to it, this is still a National Lampoon movie, and people don't go to a National Lampoon's flick to watch a nice romance blossom. They go because they want to laugh, and unfortunately this movie just doesn't provide the laughs.
National Lampoon's Adam & Eve will be released theatrically in the US... uh... I don't know, whenever they get around to it I guess. Or maybe it'll just go straight to video. I could easily see that happening. It stars Cameron Douglas, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Chad Lindberg, Jake Hoffman, Brian Klugman, and Branden Williams. Check out the official website for more.
