In 1978, the college movie genre was created with the seminal Animal House. Ever since, there has been a steady stream of college-themed movies being released from Hollywood, each attempting to one up its predecessors. Most of these films are zany coming-of-age tales, and some of them are quite successful at the box office. But some of these films have such ridiculous story lines that they cannot go without mention. The following are the most noteworthy examples of unbelievable college movie premises.
How High
Probably one of the most ludicrous films to be created in the last decade, How High is the story of two young (dubious) potheads from the projects that make it into Harvard by following a philosophy of: “Study high. Take the test high. Get high scores.” In doing so, the characters use the ashes of their deceased friend to fertilize weed. Upon smoking the weed, they receive the wisdom from the deceased, and are able to ace their exams. Eventually the system stops working and they are left to get through Harvard on their own – brilliant. For some reason, this film grossed over $30M.
Accepted
The guy from the Apple commercials, and the fat kid from Superbad, co-star in this film. The story is about a group of students who were not accepted to universities, and so they team up to make the fictional, ‘South Harmon Institute of Technology” (S.H.I.T), in order to dupe their parents. In the process, other college rejects from around the country find out about the school and enroll (a website bug?) as well. Due to the demand for the school, the students are then forced to turn their lie into a legitimate university, and watered-down college humor ensues. The aforementioned acronym-based joke is about the cleverest thing in the movie, and it does get old rather quickly. Lewis Black plays a caricatured version of himself and is at times charming.
Back To School
Alright this movie is a classic, but the believability factor leaves something to be desired. Dangerfield’s son, played by Keith Gordon, is having a hard time fitting in at college, so Dangerfield enrolls in classes and moves in with him, in order to make his life easier? Give me a break – don’t people go to college to grow up and then figure out their parents can’t do everything for them for the rest of their lives? And hiring Kurt Vonnegut to write papers for him? Come on, this is just too much.
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder
In this movie, Ryan Reynolds plays the eponymous lead role, and is apparently God’s gift to women and to the fictional Coolidge College; women want him and men want to be him, etc. So the story goes: after six years of partying and being the coolest guy in the world, Wilder’s dad decides to stop footing his college bill. Wilder is then forced to work his way through college, throwing wilder (not just a clever name) and wilder parties and eventually becomes the ‘King of the Campus’. In the process, he learns a something about life, love and himself. The upside to this film is that it was filmed when Tara Reid still looked good.
Legally Blonde
The premise of this film is that Reese Witherspoon’s character, Elle Woods enrolls in Harvard Law School in an attempt to impress the man who dumped her for someone “more serious”. Well, somehow the character makes it into law school by scoring in the top 98% of the LSAT, and finds herself in the same course as her ex and his new flame. This is definitely hard to believe, if you’ve ever considered the exam, but we’re thinking her bikini-clad video application had something to do with her acceptance. You’d expect awkwardness and situational humor, but what you get is basically a regurgitation of Clueless.
With Honors
In this movie, Brendan Fraiser plays a Harvard student who is just about to graduate with honors (that’s where the name comes from), until his computer crashes, leaving him with only one hard copy of his thesis. He then somehow loses the transcript in the school library, and it is retrieved by an opportunist, basement-dwelling bum, played by Joe Pesci. Pesci’s character then blackmails Fraiser’s character into exchanging food, lodging and other services for pages of his thesis. The back case of the DVD says, “In the process, his philosophical ramblings teach Monty and his roommates about life and love”. But, its really just a film about blackmail.
Son in Law
This movie seemed destined for mediocrity because Pauly Shore was in it. The premise – a country bumpkin falls in love with a social retard – is not that unique, nor is it that far from what happens thousands of times, in universities around the world. The ridiculousness of the premise, however, is that anyone (let alone an entire family) would come to love Pauly Shore’s character, ‘Crawl’, for who he really is. After watching this film, it should come as no surprise to find out that this film received a 25% from Rotten Tomatoes.
Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj
This film signals a changing of the guard for the Van Wilder franchise, or it is reflective that only one cast member was willing to come back for a sequel. Either way, this movie features Taj (Kal Penn) studying abroad at Cambridge, where he once again finds himself a social outcast. He then takes it upon himself to carry on the legacy of Wilder, and become the party animal and big-man-on-campus guy at Camford. The movie seems failed from casting, because even though Penn is good in Harold in Kumar, he’s not believable in this type of role. This film received a 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that 92% of people gave it a negative review.
Pledge This!
This movie features hotel heiress Paris Hilton in a raunchy comedy about fictitious Miami’s South Beach University and its hot-chick-only sorority, Gamma Gamma. Hilton’s plays the sorority leader, which in this film is voted by FHM as having the hottest sorority in America. That’s it, that’s the premise of the movie. There’s a minor subplot about a photo contest, but it is lackluster at best. There is also lots of nudity, and toilet humor.
American Pie 2
This is an obvious sequel to the widely successful 1999 film, American Pie in which the entire cast is reunited to celebrate their first year of college and cut loose. The four boys get together and rent a beach house to go nuts in for the summer, but there are a series of supposedly side-splitting mishaps that occur, including Jason Biggs’ character super-gluing his hand to his penis, and then lots of borderline homoeroticism. Not only are all the zany antics wildly unbelievable, everyone knows that high school friends don’t hang out with one another after they go to college.