One of the hardest things about being a film critic is not letting a bad day interfere with a film review. I mean, after a friend says he’s going to meet you there and you wait thirty minutes and he never shows, it hurts, but you try to put it behind you and watch the movie. Never mind that I’ve been depressed as all Hell lately and the actual human contact would have been nice, but losers can’t be choosers, and I my friends, am most definitely a loser.

So about 7:30, I trudged inside, trying to find one seat and not look like a pervert or something (c’mon—you know whenever you see a guy by himself at a screening like that that you think he’s some sort of pedophile). I found one towards the front and slumped down in my seat, ready to slash my wrists and slowly die as the blood paints the silver screen crimson, on comes a trailer for the new Will Ferrell movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy — one of the funniest trailers I’ve seen so far this year, and it will probably be one of the (if not, the most) funniest movie of the year.

That put me in better spirits.

Euro-Trip is an amusing, if not formulaic, cookie-cutter teen sex comedy that has more hits than misses, but not more tits than penises. It’s the typical story with many of the stereotypical characters we’ve become accustomed to in recent years: the mild-mannered every-teen whose girlfriend just broke up with him in the most embarrassing manner possible; his horny buddy; their nerdy, over-prepped friend and his tom-boy who’s really a hot girl sister that no one noticed before. After the mild-mannered guy accidentally tells his German e-mail pal to ***censored*** off, it’s a mad-cap dash across Europe to find her and tell her he loves her.

Along the way, they meet soccer hooligans in England, led by the scary Vinnie Jones. Then, after a montage in France (the music they play is Plastic Bertrand—very reminiscent of the same scene in National Lampoon’s European Vacation), the guys visit a male nude beach (where the directors show some guts and show over 100 penises on screen—I haven’t seen that much penis at once in my life, and I once watched a gay gang-bang porn!).

Then it’s off to Amsterdam where the horny buddy goes to a sex-club in Amsterdam and is anally raped (for laughs).  A creepy kid who idolizes Hitler is in the background in Germany and in the funniest part of all their travels, end up in a slum in Slovenia (the dog with the severed hand was priceless), which has to be the most depressing place on Earth. It all ends up in Vatican City, where a predictable set-up for wacky mishaps leads to a predictable set-up for the reconciliation for mild-mannered guy and German girl.

And oh yeah, I forgot—the brother and sister make out in a bar in a scene that is both hot and disturbing.

The main cast is basically a bunch of dumb kids I haven’t seen before, with the exception sister Michelle Tractenberg. If you don’t remember her, she was the little girl from Harriet the Spy. As much as they try to play her off as sexy, it’s pointless because she still has the same body she did in that movie. There are cameos galore, including a pointlessly unfunny one by Matt Damon, while SNLer Fred Armisen provides the most laughs with his face-licking “scuze” Italian. But the funniest one involves sex and an unwitting cameo by David Hasselhoff.

If you liked Road Trip or National Lampoon’s European Vacation but have very low expectations that this film would even come close to those cinematic highs, then you’ll enjoy Euro-Trip immensely. For me, it was a passably enjoyable lark--it has its moments, but in the end, there’s nothing to write home about.

Stay after the credits and watch a disturbing outtake from the Slovenia scene, where a little girl urinates on the street. It shows it.

Review by Louis Fowler.