SYNOPSIS:
Get ready for a wildly hilarious ride with Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symoné in Disney's chaotic comedy COLLEGE ROAD TRIP. Ambitious and confident Melanie Porter (Raven-Symoné) is eagerly looking forward to her first big step towards independence -- a girls-only road trip to check out colleges. But this rite of passage takes a wrong turn when her overprotective father (Martin Lawrence) insists on escorting her instead -- and Melanie's dream trip quickly turns into a nightmare of wild and wacky curves. So fasten your seat belts for a nonstop, laugh-out-loud, madcap adventure that'll drive you silly.
MOVIE REVIEW:
When a pig becomes the funniest thing about a movie, you know that it probably is pretty much a stinker. And that is precisely what this unfunny but tries too hard to be funny comedy is. Even with the lowered standards of a Disney family comedy, it is still bottom of the barrel.
Martin Lawrence headlines this movie about an overprotective father who decides to go on a road trip with his precious daughter after she enthuses about going to Georgetown University in Washington D.C. This ruins control-freak father’s plan of having her go to the nearby Northwestern, just a half hour’s drive away from their home.
As he has demonstrated with comedies such as Big Momma’s House, Blue Streak and Wild Hogs, Martin Lawrence is funniest when he tones down his shtick. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of his dreadful overacting here- especially when he obsesses over how his family’s pet, Albert the pig (don’t ask why), keeps eyeballing him. Indeed, even before this road trip actually begins, you’d already know you don’t want to take this ride with him.
What’s worse is how you have to put up with many of his at best childish, at worst plain annoying antics as he traverses miles of road from Chicago to Washington trying to sabotage his daughter’s plans. The team of four writers behind this farce (Emi Mochizuki, Carrie Evans, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio) can’t seem to summon enough imagination so they put him through slapstick after slapstick that only grows wearier by the minute.
To his credit, director Roger Kumble does try to keep things moving zippily enough that you won’t get bored. Still this 83-minute movie feels so manufactured and tweaked for laughs that not enough a brisk pace can cover up its inherent weaknesses.
And yes, the pig. One wonders why if the makers of this movie were so desperate that they had to get a domesticated swine to inject some humour that the humans seem so lacking in. Though, one must admit, that watching a caffeinated pig (again, don’t ask) leaving a trail of destruction through a wedding is perhaps the funniest scene here.
When this road trip finally attempts to reach some sentimentality by how father and daughter come to a mutual understanding, you cringe at how artificial it all seems. No doubt it’s a Disney movie and you know how it all will turn out, but the least they could have done is to make the ride one worth taking- something this movie certainly is not.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Quite the bevy of extras here that make you wonder why they didn’t spend more thought on the movie itself.
Audio commentary with Raven Symone and director Roger Kumble: The surprisingly interesting and spirited banter between the two actually makes this more humourous than the movie itself.
Audio commentary with writers Emi Mochizuki and Carrie Evans: Of the two, this is the duller and definitely more boring one. Only if you’re a fan of the movie.
Raven’s Video Diary: Singer/actress Raven-Symone shows you what it was like around the set of this movie. Pity the movie itself wasn’t as fun.
Deleted Scenes and Alternate Scenes: More unfunny stuff that’s not exactly worth your time at all.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Visuals are pristine. The Dolby 5.1 audio track only really comes alive during the radio-friendly pop tunes in the movie.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
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