Van Wilder: Freshman Year DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Given the popularity of the original Van Wilder, which gave Ryan Reynolds a bona fide movie career, and justly so, I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for the straight-to-DVD market to capitalize on the success of the original 2002 film. But, it's here now with Van Wilder: Freshman Year, and there's nothing we can do about it... except for say that this isn't nearly as good as the original.

Before I tear into this movie too much, I must say that it's actually a lot better than I thought it'd be. Since Reynolds' Wilder was in his seventh year at Coolidge College in the original film, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say, 'Hey, lets see what he was like in his first year.' Still, they put a lot more into the film's premise than just Van's first steps on the Coolidge Campus. The party-friendly school that we remember of Coolidge College wasn't even a twinkle in Wilder's eye yet.

When Wilder (Jonathan Bennett) arrives, the school does not live up to the college experience he was expecting. The girls have taken vows of chastity, there is no alcohol allowed anywhere near campus and the school is run by a military hardliner in Dean Charles Reardon (Kurt Fuller), who takes particular interest in young Van. See, it's apparently tradition that every male in the Wilder family graduate from Coolidge, and when Van's dad (he's in the flick but I can't find who he is on IMDB... lame) was at Coolidge, he was a guy that Reardon hated in his college days, so much that he now rules the college with an iron fist. Now that young Van is a student there, he plans to make life a living hell for Wilder... but Wilder, of course, has a few tricks up his young sleeves as well as he starts to turn the campus upside down, all the while trying to snag hottie Kaitlin (Kristin Cavalarri) out from under the grasp of her d-bag boyfriend, and ROTC lackey to Reardon, Dirk (Steve Talley).

While I liked that writer Todd McCullough, who for some reason wasn't credited on the IMDB page (lame), came up with an inventive first year for Van Wilder, I was pretty disappointed that he wasn't that inventive with the humor. Aside from Jonathan Bennett's Ryan Reynolds-esque performance, which is kind of eerie at times how similar their mannerisms are, the humor is rather limited here and the gags in this film just seem played compared to what we got in the original film. Sometimes the jokes get stretched out way too far (like one of the first ones where Wilder duct-tapes a bunch of vibrators to a church pew where the most chaste girls are sitting in), some are just tired attempts at amateur humor that falls way short. I did like, however, the nice little origin story of how Van met his misfit pooch Colossus and while there are a few sprinkles of comedy here and there, the misfires definitely outnumber the hits here.

While you won't see any Oscars handed out here, the acting isn't quite as bad as I thought either, with Jonathan Bennett doing a pretty decent job as the freshman Wilder. He did keep a lot of the same kinds of things from Ryan Reynolds' version, but he does a decent job of making him his own, this younger and more vulnerable version of Van Wilder. Kristin Cavalarri does an O.K. job as the primary eye candy, Kaitlin, but Steve Talley gives us the same old song and dance as the jackass, uptight boyfriend Dirk and Kurt Fuller is average as the mean old Dean Reardon.

Van Wilder: Freshman Year gives us a surprisingly original plot, but depends too heavily on the gross-out conventions of the first film, and conventions that aren't nearly as funny this time around, to boot.

We actually get quite a lot here, which is a bit surprising for a straight-to-DVD flick. We start out with Creating the Legend: The Making of Van Wilder: Freshman Year and it's your pretty standard making-of thing and we hear from Jonathan Bennett, Kristen Cavallari, Kurt Fuller, Steve Talley, Nic Nac, Jerry Shea, Nestor Absera and director Harvey Glazer and this 17-minute thing gives you all the normal trappings one would expect from a making-of doc*mentary thing.

Going Balls Out: Colossus is next and it's a little mock featurette where everyone is kind of poking fun of the dog's involvement and such, calling the dog a diva, saying he has the biggest trailer, etc. It's just a three-minute thing and it's pretty lame.

Coolidge College: Orientation Video is next and it's basically these actors talking about their characters' thoughts about the college, and blah blah blah. Most of them are in character, talking about their own thoughts on the school and what they want from it. It's another three-minute bit and it's a little better than the last one. A little bit...

Decatur is next and I assume it's a spin-off of The Hills. I wouldn't know because I don't watch the show... because I'm a guy. It's all with these actors as themselves, but with their own Hills-ish spin on it and blah blah blah. I guess it's kind of cool that Kristen Cavalarri can make fun of herself with a little spoof like this, and it's a tiny bit funny, but this eight-minute thing is really not worth watching that much.

Next up is Teacher's Pets and it basically just is a random hot chicks in the flick talking about how cool and hot and sexy they think Van Wilder is and then some talking about the sex ed scene and other random sexy craziness. The downside? It's only about two and a half minutes long... and the girls have clothes on. Bah.

Bloopers are next and we've seen some of these on the end-credit roll but most of them are pretty lame. It's a six and a half minute reel and there aren't a whole lot of laughs to be had.

Van's Party Supplies keeps the features going and most of this is from the prop master who talks about the task of getting the incredible amount of dildos and vibrators for one scene and some crazy bongs for Farley's character that were actually custom made. It's about four minutes long and if you're into bongs and sex toys, check it out.

Pranks 101 is the last thing we get here and it's just a bunch of cast members talking about different pranks they've pulled in high school and college. We get some lame ones but Kurt Fuller has a pretty damn awesome prank he reveals at the end of this four-minute thing that's worth watching.

The film is presented in the widescreen format, enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound format.

Rather lametastic. The front has the title card with a the bottom half of a girl in panties taking up the whole front cover, with the word "Unrated" printed on her bum, and that bulldog in the lower right corner. The back has a brief synopsis, a shot of the young Wilder and two of the chicks, the special features written on a chalkboard along with four smaller, random pics and the billing block and tech specs. Yawn.

While Van Wilder: Freshman Year, does have a surprisingly solid premise, it's filled with clich&#233d gags, characters and performances that just don't live up to the original.