I am of two minds about this flick, and these two minds have been waging a violent war since last night’s screening. My head hurts… 21 and Over is, in many ways, your quintessential post-Hangover debauchery based comedy. It’s seriously sophomoric, more than a little misogynistic, and full of gross-out gags and moments meant to shock the audience into laughing. It presents and glorifies an exaggerated reality of college kids being reckless dumb asses. I say exaggerated reality but perhaps I should call it an exaggerated wet dream, because the female characters in this film seem to have been written by the same person who pens those infamous Penthouse letters. They are completely unbelievable, but then so are most of the characters and plot events in this film.
It should be obvious by now that my rational mind wishes fervently I could dismiss 21 and Over as an idiotic exercise in translating male fantasy to the big screen. Unfortunately for my rational half, there’s another part of me that kind of enjoyed watching it. I laughed quite a lot and, in fact, thought this was funnier than The Hangover. Mind you, I didn’t think The Hangover was particularly funny (seriously overrated, in my opinion). And based on the hackneyed advertising, I was pleasantly surprised to find some semblance of actual character development. By the end, I was kind of even rooting for these morons (except for the boring love-sick one, he sucked).
Ultimately, I probably laughed and cringed in equal measure, but if you go in expecting and accepting a large amount of stupidity, you’ll be rewarded with a fun bit of entertainment. In other words, channel your inner teenage boy and you’ll have an okay time. C
