Curapedi
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
WillSushyMedia
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Yash Wade
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
slightlymad22
Cashing in on the success of the American Pie movies comes this American Pie meets Ferris Bueller knock off. Hell it even stars one of the lead actress's from the American Pie franchise Tara Reid. Even though she is really thin here and seems to sleep walk through her role, this was still her pre rent a wreck era.But she is just there as a bit of stunt casting (to evoke memories of the Pie franchise) as this is really all about the Ryan Reynolds as the title character. He is the best thing about this movie, but he is a good looking safe bit of casting. A Jack Black on the other hand, would have smashed the role out of the park, and took the movie to the next level.Kal Pen is awful as the stereotypical Indian sidekick, and I have never known how he continues to have an acting career. His delivery of lines in his fake accent is dire and is worse when he tried to do comedy in his real voice (see his woeful turn as Kevin in "How I Met Your mother") look out for a pre "Big Bang Theory" Simon Helberg in a small supporting role too. The movie is just a rehash of lots of other movies!! Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, (queue music montage of both of them looking miserable) boy gets girl back at the end! Or the obviously brilliant slacker is coasting trough life, meets girl and after an initial dislike, fall in love and she shows him the error of his ways or even boy meets girl, but girl has a boyfriend (who is a sleazy jerk) who happens to be out to destroy our hero, after showing girl, how evil her boyfriend is, she falls in to boys arms.... They are all here!! Whilst there are many quotable lines, I was cringe worthy silent during most of this movie, and with the exception of one or two scenes there are not a lot of laughs to be had.Teenagers may get a kick out of it, but that is about it!!
wes-connors
During his seventh year at "Coolidge" college, handsome Ryan Reynolds (as Van Wilder) gets his tuition cut off by father Tim Matheson (as Van Wilder Sr.), an embarrassed "Animal House" (1978) alumni. When Mr. Matheson finds his son wearing a women's negligee at an underwear swap party, he fears Reynolds might be gay; obviously, Matheson doesn't catch on very fast anymore. However, Mr. Reynolds is enterprising young man; he uses his supposedly large genitalia to stay in school...Arousing blonde reporter Tara Reid (as Gwen Pearson) does a story on Reynolds. He turns from promiscuous and partying to thinking Ms. Reid might be that "special someone." For some reason, Reid's premature ejaculating boyfriend Daniel Cosgrove (as Richard Bagg) maintains a hold on Reid. For what it's worth, Mr. Cosgrove actually performs his role well. "Van Wilder" delivers lots of fart and balls humor, some beer and breasts, a few gay jokes... all climaxing in a huge dump.** Van Wilder (4/4/02) Walt Becker ~ Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Daniel Cosgrove, Tim Matheson
all-accounts
I had the displeasure of watching Van Wilder for the first and last time last night. Oh how it still burns in my head. This poor film suffers from some odd sort of cinematic schizophrenia: sometimes it thinks it wants to be animal house as it's stereotypical "frat-boy-cum-slave-driver" uses unidentified and nameless students as croquet posts and tunnels, and sometimes it wants to be a sentimental love story. This movie feels like a string of barely related pranks and humor that was patch-worked together with something akin to a plot. Our hero, the amiable and misguided but otherwise kind hearted Van Wilder is every college boys wet dream of a self-image: Intelligent but not too intelligent, clever with comebacks, interested in finer things like love and friends and disinterested in having a life revolving around work, living off his fathers bank account, campus celebrity, blah blah blah.... I'm sure you've probably seen this before and it was much better as a high school movie called "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", or was it "Animal House", or maybe this film just tries to lamely take concepts from these better films and update them for a newer audience. Whatever it is it's pure crap.I've never seen such sick humor outside of a Troma Studios movie. At least with a Troma release you expect lots of feces, vomit, sick humor involving children and a plot as absurd as the premise. But in Van Wilder you get all the vomit, sperm and abuse with a plot they think you might care about. Boy has it good, boy gets told by father that he will not receive more easy money, boy has roaring good time as he crunches many business opportunities to raise money so he can continue with his chosen looserly lifestyle, boy meets overtly-cute pseudo-intelligent girl who wants an interview for the school paper, and wait for the surprise... Boy falls in love with girl who has boyfriend in the snottiest frat on campus. Bet you didn't see that coming. Bet you don't see the friction, pranks and insults that go on between Frat boy and Van Wilder. But then again, I am sure you do.The shining moments of the movie are only so because they will stay burned in your brain for days afterwards. Take for instance the continual shots of Van's bulldog's obviously fake, over-sized testicles which will fill your screen on occasion. You will get endlessly entertained by swaying testicles, floating hot-tub testicles, Van kissing dog testicles in an early morning surprise. As if the large testicles weren't enough we get one of the most disturbing scenes in movie history when Van plots revenge against his rival, the boyfriend of the main love interest of course, by removing the cream filling of eclairs using gynecological instruments only to be refilled by having his friend masturbate the dog to create a new and exciting filling. But wait! There's more! Once the many eclairs are full and the dogs testicles are now down to a normal, smaller pair, they are placed casually and suspiciously outside the snotty frat-house. Oh the horror as for quite a while we are treated to many frat boys voraciously enjoying every gooey, warm, drippy, clear drop of the dog sperm from the eclair as they make obvious comments like "Wow, they're still warm" and "I think I have had these before". Trust me, much time is dedicated to this scene and.... Damn. I used to love eclairs.There is a lot of really easy and simple humor in this movie. Let's have an Indian student talk about dirty sex as it will be funny just for that accent. Or maybe we can get elementary school kids drunk and have them projectile vomit. Let's have strippers who fart smoke, that's cool.?? This movie has none of the charm of Beavis and Butthead, none of the stylistic unapologetic crassness of a Troma Film, And the plot is soooooo predictable and merely a rehash of almost every bad college film in history. It's the same plot as One Crazy Summer but not even close to funny and that film used Curtis Armstrong in a way that we all laughed at. In this film he has been degraded to a momentary laugh and no character at all. No body in this film gets fleshed out, the only thing remote to character development is the exchange student gets laid and Van Wilder comes to understand why he hasn't left college in 7 years and trust me that part is about as deep as a dog-bowl.I wish I had something nice to say about this movie. Even Showgirls is enjoyable for it's embarrassing attempt at seriousness, but this piece of work has no redeeming qualities. The only truly funny moment is as the credits roll and we see some of the behind the scenes pranks with several characters playing up homosexual elements that were only hinted at in the film. I'm sorry but I can't even recommend this film. Avoid it all costs.
skimask05
Is this the most thought provoking picture? No. Does it burst with wit and philosophical musings? No. Is it awesome for its use of dick jokes and trashy humor? Hellz ya. I love this movie because its always on Comedy Central and it has those two or three moments every time that just make me laugh. Also, this was before the Tara Reid disaster, so she looks decent. The cast isn't exactly top-notch but to be honest, this movie doesn't' need an impressive cast, all it needs is a bunch of people who can make a good fart joke and a dog with prosthetic testicles. The story has obviously been told before but an updated collection of gags and sophomoric humor keep this movie ahead of the pack. Bottom line, if you're just looking to watch a movie with some buddies at 1 am after a hard nights drinking, you can't go wrong with this one. And if you're just looking to find out what Tara Reid looked like before the s*$t hit the fan, this movie is for you.