![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/e/eurotrip.jpg)
Eurotrip: Unrated Edition
Resurrected through the success of films like American Pie and Road Trip, the teen T&A comedy has been reborn. But while most are expressly raunchy, they lack the ample gratuitous nudity of their forebearers. However, Eurotrip (2004) seems hell-bent to make up for it — even in its R-rated version, the film had copious amounts of nudity. Yet one wishes it were more Meatballs than Screwballs — it's a very slipshod affair that gets by on being dumb but genial. Scott Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) graduates high school, only to find his hot girlfriend Fiona (Kristen Kreuk) has been cheating on him big time — so much so that a punk band writes a song about him. Feeling hurt and dejected, he gets really drunk, and when his pen pal Mika (Jessica Bohrs) sends him a letter suggesting they "get together," he thinks he's being hit on by a guy and freaks. What he doesn't realize is that Mika is a girl's name in German, and that he's been chatting with a hot chick. Normally a predictable person, Scott impulsively decides to go to Europe to win her back. Joining him on his quest is best friend/sarcastic Matthew Lillard-clone Cooper (Jacob Pitts), and on their trip the two hook up with traveling twins Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Webster). Along the way they tour all over Europe hoping to get to Germany, and get sidetracked by borderline amusing asides. In England they hook up with football hooligans (headed by Vinnie Jones); in Amsterdam, Cooper goes to a sex club, while Jenny and Scott try to buy some pot brownies; in a pseudo Czechoslovakian country they find out how exchange rates can be used to their advantage and try some absinthe, while on the train they're stuck in a cabin with a sleazy Italian (Fred Armisen). The scene that will make Eurotrip a minor classic of its kind is when the boys go to a nude beach and are confronted with gratuitous amounts of unexpected and unwanted nudity. Written and directed by Harvard Lampoon alums Alec Berg, David Mandel, and Jeff Schaffer (who gets the director's credit, though the three directed it together; the DGA insisted only one receive credit), the hit-to-miss ratio is low, and some jokes couldn't be flatter. But because the majority of the cast are unknowns, and some of the cameos are funny (including one by Matt Damon), the film feels innocuous. DreamWorks presents the Unrated Edition of Eurotrip in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. There are two commentaries by the writers and directors, the first done sober, and the second with the trio drinking any time there is underage drinking, sex, or nudity on screen (by the end, all three sound as though they may have to make emergency trips to the porcelain god). Also included are deleted scenes (18 min.) with optional commentary, along with an alternate ending (3 min.) also with optional commentary, a bootlegged version of the film (4 min.), a featurette on the making of the nude beach sequence (6 min.), a gag reel (5 min.), "How to Pick a Director" (2 min.), which illuminates the process of how the boys decided who got the credit, two music videos, a photo gallery, and the original screenplay. The film also comes with regular chapter stops, along with Nude Scene and Unrated Scene indices. Keep-case.
—DSH
