Top Box Office Movies - Sorority Boys

Sorority Boys (2002) Touchstone Pictures
1 hr. 32 mins.
Starring: Barry Watson, Michael Rosenbaum, and Harland Williams.
Directed by: Wallace Wolodarsky

Sorority Boys

Rating:

E-MAIL GIANCARLO DE LISI

Photo: Touchstone Pictures

Toilet humour has always been the easiest method of acquiring laughs. No matter how serious a person can be, a plastic penis swordfight, or perverse sexual humour will at least elicit even the slightest laugh. Yet, upon watching the newest gross-out, perverse fraternity film ‘Sorority Boys’, one will emit laughter for the first ten minutes of this film that proves to be a sin to cinema.

This film might have been good looking on paper, yet if it were, none of that brilliance has been transplanted on screen. While viewing the film, one cannot help to feel a certain sense of embarrassment for our three male characters who are forced to dress up as women in what deems to be one of the most antiquated thematic plots in film.

The film’s wafer-thin treatment is written so as to have toilet humour as the main point of evolvement for laughter. Yet, what worked in ‘National Lampoon’s Animal House’ does not categorically function on screen in this film.

Three college students are forced out of their dorm after the Fraternity’s money is stolen. 7th Heaven’s Barry Watson stars as Dave who becomes Daisy, Smallville’s Lex Luthor played by Michael Rosenbaum portrays Adam, who turns into Adina, and under appreciated Canadian actor Harland Williams plays Doofer, who becomes Roberta. Out of all three, Michael Rosenbaum gives the most solid (If I can use this word for a film such as this) performance as a weight obsessed she-male. Evidently, Rosenbaum must have shot this film while on hiatus from ‘Smallville’; his fake male hairpiece poorly hides his bald head. These three men when forced out of the dorm contemplate a plan that would give them free room and board and access to the Surveillance tape that would prove their innocence.

This film is a concrete example on the objectification of women within cinema and it sustains no minute detail of an actual shred of intelligence. I am fully aware of what the film’s aim was; in addition I also am fully aware that I would be encompassed with twisted, perverse gags within the film. Yet, I was expecting to be treated as a viewer who had intelligence. Instead this film feeds the viewer stupidity repeatedly for a relentlessly appalling 90 minutes. The laughs end after the 10-minute mark because the remainder of the film recycles these same elements and attempts at milking our funny bone with the exact nonsense seen earlier yet in a different vein.

Director Wallace Wolodarsky fails miserably at capturing the essence of what makes some fraternity films a classic. While our three main characters dressed as women gain access to a rival female fraternity, more nonsense ensues. Director Wolodarsky creates the most ridiculously convenient ideas in order to place our three male characters who are dressed as women in very sexual situations. One such example shows the contact lenses missing from one of the female’s eyes therefore the woman cannot see a fully-grown man showering with her. This Director is fixated of showcasing flying plastic penises and foreign exchange students with hairy armpits that he loses track of decency and a molecule of intelligence.

Of course, there is always a moral tale to be learned. And while these three men were merely days ago mocking the same women who are housing them, they become acquainted with the feelings these woman harbour and in turn aid them at an uprising against the oppressor; the male fraternity.

If one were to dissect this film for it’s cinematic elements, one would become slowly insane. What is even more insane is how a talented actress such as Heather Matarazzo (The Devils’ Advocate, Welcome to the Dollhouse) finds herself tarnishing her resume with this brute piece of film. On a final note, the discerning viewer will realize when this film has hit ‘rock-bottom’. When you have two of your main characters in a poorly choreographed act of swordplay with gag-penises, it leaves something to be desired.

Click here to comment on this review or post your own thoughts.

Giancarlo De Lisi
© TheWorldJournal.com

<![if lt IE 4]> <script src="http://servedbyadbutler.com/adserve/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329;type=js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <noscript> <a href="http://servedbyadbutler.com/go2/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329"> <img src="http://servedbyadbutler.com/adserve.ibs/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329;type=img" border="0" height="600" width="120" alt=""></a> </noscript><![endif]>

Top Box Office Movies © TheWorldJournal.com, All rights reserved. Student News Network For the best advertising rates at TheWorldJournal.com (120x600 - new banner format by the Interactive Advertising Bureau), click here. Back to top	e-mail: info@theworldjournal.com sales: sales@theworldjournal.com