21 & Over
Best friends forever right?
Old
friends Miller (Miles Teller) and Casey (Skylar Austin) want to surprise
their old friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) on his 21st
birthday for a night of drinking and partying. Only problem is that Jeff
Chang has a life changing medical school interview in the morning but as
the kids say YOLO right?
Jon
Lucas and Scott Moore the writers of “The Hangover” and “The Change-up”
make their directorial debut in what appears to be The Hangover taking
place in a College and in some ways you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking
that. However it’s so much more. There’s bits of “Animal House”,
“Revenge of the Nerds”, ‘’Weekend at Bernie’s”, in fact if you have a
seen any movie that is situated in a college with male leads you have
seen the better half of this film before.
“21
& Over “is really just a series of rehashed jokes from other movies,
it’s almost like the directors wanted to remake a bunch of movies and
couldn’t get the licences and went “stuff it, we’ll make em anyways”.
The
leads are all mostly unknowns and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if
they played their characters like an unknown but alas like the movie
they too have had to remake past appearances. Miles Teller tries his
best to impersonate Vince Vaughn, you know that type of dry humour with
a unique blend of stupidity coming from an under achiever and Skylar
Austin fits the bill as a Luke Wilson knock off. However, the most
likable character is definitely Justin Chong’s Jeff Chang, but
unfortunately he doesn’t have that much screen time, which is a shame
because the time we do have with him is usually the best moments of the
movie.
Car
crashes, drinking games, sorority girls it’s all in a day’s work with
this lot. In a crazy night full of shenanigans the boys just wreak havoc
all over town. Some of the big laughs come from Jeff Chang’s character
turning from a straight A student to a full-fledged alcoholic. I would
expect if you were over 16 and under 25 you are going to love this
movie; It’s made for your demographic. Being just out of that I felt
some of the jokes fell a bit flat and kind of made the movie all that
much sillier.
One
thing I noticed is the sheer amount of racist, homophobic and sexist
humour that was splashed over the film. It’s not really that I found it
offensive in anyway, it was lazy writing more than anything. When
you’ve heard one racist Asian joke you have heard them all and 21 and
over is plastered with them.
Overall 21 & over has its laughs but if you’re over 25 or a child of the
80’s you have seen everything this movie has to offer and most cases
done better by other films.
Video and sound quality of the Blu-ray transfer is top notch. Not too
much in the special features department just a gag reel, a trailer and
two short BTS features that really don’t bring much to the overall
experience. The gag reel is worth a watch though.
