'Eurotrip' makes for lame travels

Reel Reflections movie review

The teaser trailer for "Eurotrip" depicts Cooper Harris (Jacob Pitts, "Pipe Dream") chained and harassed by a European dominatrix. Sitting through this movie would prove only slightly less painful.

The movie has its humorous moments, but nothing truly novel or unpredictable. While produced by Daniel Goldberg, ("Road Trip" and "Old School"), the film was not nearly as funny as his previous ventures.

"Eurotrip" features Scott Thomas, (Scott Mechlowicz, "Neverland"), who travels to Europe with his best friend Cooper after high school graduation. The pair's destinatin is Berlin, where Scott's German pen pal, Mieke, (played by German television actress Jessica Boehrs) resides. Scott and Cooper miss their bus in to Berlin from Paris, however, and opt to meet up with two high school classmates, twins Jenny, (Michelle Trachtenberg, "Inspector Gadget"), and Jamie, (Travis Webster, "Teddy Bears' Picnic") who were touring Paris at the time. The four travel through Europe getting lost and visiting historic sites en route to Berlin. On the way, they encounters various unusual incidents.

Scott is determined to meet up with Mieke and profess his love for her no matter what it takes. Cooper is a sexually deprived, self-proclaimed pervert. Jenny has been friends with Cooper and Scott throughout high school and always was treated as "one of the guys." She constantly tries to exert her femininity, which comes off as forced to the viewer or to her friends. Jamie is a geeky know-it-all who tries to provide some guidance to the group.

The only acting lacked the draw of a notable actor. As a result of the relative acting immaturity, the presentation came off without the pinache of a true comedy team. "Eurotrip" lacked the polish of "Roadtrip" and "Old School" — each with seasoned comedic experience in the form of Seann William Scott ("American Wedding") and Will Ferell ("Elf") respectively. The storyline of "Eurotrip" simply didn't have the continuity of its predecessors.

Most of the jokes in the film center around nudity, homophobia and alcohol — few scenes incorporate anything else. A select few of the scenes set the characters in moderately comical settings in little-known parts of Europe and dealt with how the characters would manage to continue to their destination, Berlin.

The movie includes an excessive amount of unnecessary nudity, to the point that an average viewer feels as though he or she was looking at Playboy for the very first time.

Some of the non-sexually related scenes are extremely far-fetched, and little explanation is given for these occurrences. The viewer is expected not to think twice and continue watching the movie . For example, the characters have their passports stolen, but continue with their travels anyway.

"Eurotrip" appears to have saved money on production costs by using a patented, "Indiana Jones"-style of travel — showing a red line progress across a map of Europe as the quartet travels from city to city. The film shows little to nothing of what happens en route to the different European cities. At least "Indiana Jones" films make up for this with a stellar story line — "Eurotrip" does not. Frequently, the characters simply are seen emerging from the subway system — even if they arrived in London by plane.

Much of the film appeared to have been shot on location featuring notable European landmarks like the Louvre in Paris and San Marco's square in Italy. The cast — main characters and extras included — seemed to be made up of entirely of Americans — lacking representation of native Europeans. One scene conveniently depictued a beach of American tourists.

At the end of the movie, the credits feature clips from a number of deleted scenes. Many of the clips were more humorous than the scenes that actually were selected for the movie. It leaves the viewer wondering why the director left them out — especially because the movie came in a running time of a mere one hour 32 minutes.