Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Bloated Pussy
Jun 9, 2002

dont read my posts
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Elisha Cuthbert

I've seen this twice, and although I'd heard it improves on repeated viewings, I didn't enjoy it anymore than I did the first time around.

Old School's humor comes in waves, and there are a few good laughs, but there's also plenty of time in between them. It spends far too much time trying to weave a plot together, and when you've got someone like Will Ferrell at your disposal, that seems like a waste. They would've been better to establish a basic premise and bare plot and then let it be.

Vince Vaughn's all right, once again doing the same character that we've seen elsewhere (see: Dodgeball).

Though I know it's rated R I found it to be pretty soft -- it's even tamer than something like Revenge of the Nerds. I didn't find a lot of the stuff very funny at all (Blue) and when the movie's only trying to be funny 50% of the time, missed jokes really hurt.

It's definitely a rental, and if your buddies have built it up to be OMGTHEBESTCOMEDYEVER then expect to be disappointed. If you fast forward through the unfunny tacked on crap you might get a good 30 minute movie out of it. Sadly, 30 minutes of comedy is probably deemed acceptable by most movie-goers, and this movie gets labelled a "classic!!" alongside other films which manage to keep you laughing in every scene.

Here's to hoping Anchorman doesn't suffer from the same affliction.

RATING: 3.0

PROS: A lot of scenes are funny
CONS: A lot of scenes aren't funny

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302886/

Bloated Pussy fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jul 8, 2004

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Debbie Metallica
Jun 7, 2001

I didn't like it the first time I saw it, but I watched it again because of my sick crush on Luke Wilson and loved it. There are a couple of bad scenes but as a whole I'd say it's a pretty decent comedy, though Will Ferrell really was wasted here. They could have done a lot more with him and they didn't.

3.5/5

JamieMadrox
Feb 8, 2004
DON'T CLOSE SH/SC THREADS
Good comedy, kept me laughing for a majority of the time...which is what it set out to do. Premise is funny to begin with and the jokes could've been hit or miss; for the most part they hit right on and worked well. It was what it was, I wasn't going in expecting to see a masterpiece but I got everything I expected of it as a comedy. Very good rental.

4/5

Mr. Stingly
Sep 1, 2001

Satanic cop-killing henchman with a heart of gold
Friends and I saw this when it first came to DVD, not knowing what to expect, except that it looked good in previews.

We were blown out of our chairs. It spawned the kind of hysterical-can't-breathe-bulging-eyed-coughing-headache-inducing laughter that you really hope for watching a comedy for the first time.

Specifically we just went crazy when Seann William Scott popped in out of no-where and just his getup was incredibly funny, and then every loving word out of his mouth.

And the absolute jackpot and easily the funniest piece of physical comedy I can recall is in this scene with Scott. It involves a firing dartgun, and Frank the Tank's swollen neck. We watched that instant over and over again. And that whole scene, over and over and over again. It is the reason I own Old School.

Besides the knock-out jokes there are about a million little tiny jokes that come from the way an actor says or does something.

Like Vince Vaughn high fiving the bride way too hard. His comments to the groom right before his vows. The way he acts in his commercial. "Earmuffs."

Frank the Tank, drunk.

Craig Kilborne.

The dude from PCU, in an excellent and very very funny twist, as the Dean of the University.

4/5

  • Post
  • Reply