Freshman Orientation: Critic Reviews

A campus comedy with a dirty mouth, an innocent heart and a surprisingly wise mind, Freshman Orientation uses identity politics as a road to romance and emotional maturity. The naked breasts are a bonus.

This trivial film toys with the postmodern lifestyles.

Freshman Orientation is not incompetently made. Nor is it badly acted. But there's not a fresh idea in it, and everyone on screen seems to be in a different comedy.

John Goodman has a nice turn as a queen with a heart of gold.

...goes way over the top for the Greeks vs. Gays climax.

Freshman Orientation feels a bit like a missed opportunity. It's too bad the motion picture as a whole isn't as quirky and clever as its double-edged title.

...too often feels more like a tapped-out keg than a provocative romp.

Admirably aiming to recreate the feelings of newfound freedom and self-discovery that college inspires, Freshman Orientation never finds a way to successfully execute its good intentions.

You enter expecting something really stupid, and you wind up with something really clever . . . hysterical . . . wise.

...might push boundaries better were it not so painfully unfunny.

The charms of this college gross-out comedy with a "message" are elusive.

Consider my two-star rating an indication that the film's Gut-Buster-to-Forehead-Slapper ratio is relatively even.

OK, it's official: I no longer care about 18 year olds.

Theatres showing it will likely have as many conspicuously empty seats as the classrooms and barrooms in this picture, which was apparently shot on such a shoestring that they couldn't even get enough extras to fill a set.

Freshman Orientation barely rates a passing grade.

A genderbending teensploit turning on a clever twist of the genre's trademark theme. For while most makeover movies feature a female making herself more attractive, this flick has a male deliberately doing the opposite.

Writer/director Ryan Shiraki certainly adds some youthful exuberance to his debut feature film, but it's all wasted on a tremendously misguided and exhaustively dim screenplay

There are other things to like about writer-director Ryan Shiraki's college comedy, mainly that it feels more real than most... Just one problem: It isn't particularly funny.

Blessedly shrewd where it counts and deserves notice. The lessons develop naturally and aren't jammed down the viewer's throat like the hypocritical sermonizing in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

The film's abundant humor and sharp tongue give way to watery romantic-comedy conventions in the end.

I was honored and privileged to say that I saw a film at Sundance that actually captured the fun of pretending to be gay to win a sorority sister.