Old School Review
by Brendan Cullin (brendan AT empiremovies DOT com)February 18th, 2003
OLD SCHOOL
RATING 1/10
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It is only mid-February and I have just witnessed what will undoubtedly go down as one of the worst movies of the year. Old School is that bad. Let me warn you now - seeing this movie is not only a waste of money, it is a waste of time. The entire movie is one big waste of film. I think I laughed whole-heartedly once during the movie and chuckled three or four times.
Old School is about three thirty-something year old guys (Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn) who take over a house on a university campus and form a fraternity to try to reclaim their adolescent glory. They recruit a group of outcasts and old men and start throwing parties, hitting on young women and drinking lots of beer. The dean of the college (Jeremy Piven) is someone that the trio used to bully around in their younger days and he tries to sabotage their attempt to form the fraternity by closing down their fraternity house.
The entire premise of the movie is ridiculous. Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn are as bad as they have ever been in any movie they have ever made. I think this is the first movie that I have ever seen Will Ferrell headline and based on the results, it may be the last. It seems Ferrell is naked for nearly half the movie and that alone is reason enough to not see this film. I am sure if you look close enough, there is a penis shot in the movie. There is also the old penis joke "It must be cold outside". Like we have not heard that one a million times. I have never personally heard it. But many of my friends have told me they have had women tell them that one. And I know I saw it on Seinfeld and Friends before.
Vince Vaughn continues his spiral downwards since attracting an almost cult-like following after Swingers. He fails to deliver one funny punchline or one funny moment from beginning to end. Luke Wilson isn't too bad - at least his character is somewhat likeable, although, like the rest of the movie, nothing to be proud of. If a thirty-year old man sleeping with a high school student is supposed to be funny, then I think I had better go stick my head in a snowbank outside and wake myself up because I am missing something. An eighty-year old man oil wrestling with hot, young, topless university chicks could be funny. In Old School it was painful to watch. The movie features cameos by a handful of Hollywood hotshots - Juliette Lewis, Craig Kilborn, Sean William Scott, Artie Lange, Andy Dick - not one of them could do anything to save this disaster.
If anyone in Hollywood is listening, please give me a budget and a camcorder and I will follow around a few of my thirty-something year old friends and I guarantee I can come up with a much better movie than Old School. I have womanizers, farters, geeks, divorcees. Their lives are way funnier than any single moment from this jumbled mess.
I really hope director Todd Phillips' next project, Starsky and Hutch, a movie I am personally looking forward to seeing, is much better than Old School. See this movie at your own risk. This is no joke. Old School is a big piece of stinky poo.
Review Date: February 17, 2003
Author: Brendan Cullin
Official Site: http://www.oldschool-themovie.com/
Director: Todd Phillips
Distributed by: DreamWorks
Theatrical Release Date: February 21, 2003
Cast: Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn
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