Runtime:
1 hr. 23 min.
Rating:
G
Cast:
Raven Symone, Martin Lawrence, Donny Osmond, Will Sasso
Director:
Roger Kumble
Genres:
Road Movie, Comedy, Coming-of-Age, Domestic Comedy, Family-Oriented Comedy
So where do you start when the best acting in a film is done by a pork belly pig?
I really don’t know. Obviously I am talking the about the over-the-top, the overly acted, the overly bad, beyond formulaic College Road Trip. I have no doubt this will end up on my worst list.
College Road Trip is the story of disturbingly overprotective father/police chief James Porter, played by Martin Lawrence, who can’t let go of his daughter Melanie, played by Raven-Symone. James keeps alphabetized videos from the time she was a baby to the present. And he has even decided Melanie will attend Northwestern no matter what.
Of course Melanie has other ideas. An overachieving high school senior with Georgetown in her scope, Melanie wants to prove her independence to her dad.
When an opportunity presents itself for Melanie to visit the admissions board at Georgetown, she jumps at the chance to ride off with her girlfriends on a college road trip - stopping off in Pittsburgh to visit The University of Pitt as well. Of course Lawrence’s James puts the kibosh to the whole idea and decides to take Melanie himself.
Insert predictable, horribly unfunny set pieces. One after the boring other.
Directed by Roger Kumble, College Road Trip is a by the numbers, corporate and very mechanical so-called family film. I got more family feeling out of the recent Be Kind Rewind than this piece of junk. It feels like a collaboration of filmmakers, number crunchers and focus groups.
I can see all three groups huddled around a conference room table, brainstorming.
“So Melanie and James have missed their flight.”
“So what do they do?”
“There’s a diving team…get it?... heading to their private plane. Let’s have Mel and James mistake them for divers instead of…SKY DIVERS!”
“Brilliant. Do that! Yes. Let’s get lattes and go to yoga.”
What the hell? I can’t tell you how NOT funny that scene was. Oh and of course they are going to let the two – untrained skydivers – jump out of a plane.
Yeah, brilliant.
Look I think Martin Lawrence is a funny guy. There are plenty of films I enjoyed him in…even Bad Boys 2…but he plays the role of James Porter with an almost creepy, incestuous feel. He peeks through windows, as his daughter is getting ready to drive off with her girlfriends. Yuck. Particularly creepy is a scene where James sneaks across Pitt’s campus, climbs a ladder up to a sorority dorm room and spies on Raven and co. If that weren’t enough, he ends up sleeping underneath her bed while she and a girlfriend talk about lip-gloss.
Raven-Symone plays Melanie as if she is still on That’s So Raven. Her performance is over the top and, honestly, really bad. Hey, Raven, I was upset when you passed on Queen B. Um. Okay. I’m glad I got to see you in this first. In fact, I dare say I never want to see Raven-Symone act again. Yes she’s that bad. And she can barely sing. Poor Frankie Smith has to have her re-do his 80’s rap classic The Double Dutch Bus. The Double-Dutch Bus!?!
Oh should I mention the rest of the cast? Hmm, let’s see the focus group and the number crunchers say we need an ultra-white version of James and Melanie…
“How about Donny and Marie?”
“Hmm, Marie is too old. But we love Donny. Sign him!”
Donny Osmond, if possible, is even more over the top and possibly creepier (think the original The Stepfather) than James.
Oh yeah, and then there’s a lame B-story with James’ son, Trey (Eshaya Draper) a genius with a genius pig.
Laughing yet?
Yes Roger Kumble, director of such lame films as The Sweetest Thing and Cruel Intentions 2 has concocted a film, which rips off every Chevy Chase movie ever made…but without the spirit. This film should have gone Direct to…
…Garbage.
Then again, perhaps I am being too hard on the creatives. After all, it is a family film.
So I asked my daughters Chloe and Max what they thought. They hated it, too.
That’s my girls!
One Ball Point Pen