A broad and base comedy of bad manners, Van Wilder (2002) is disguised as a revisitation of the hallowed college-cutup ground of Animal House(1978). Both movies were produced with the nominal involvement of National Lampoon, and each has a cadre of feckless ne’er-do-wells as the nominal heroes. Van Wilder attempts to elevate its chump savants to a level of philanthropic altruism and plays at being a pat "message" picture with an easily digested moral to the story.
That’s the long way to say, if you had hopes of peaking in on some good-ol’ college experimentation, you’ll want to point your campus compass elsewhere. Reynold’s rump gives a cameo near the films beginning, but you’d think film makers would learn to shoot around those pesky statutes that are always blocking the below-the-belt shots.