Sex Drive (10/26/08)

Lettergrade: D-

Boredom combined with not wanting to drive to see a movie motivated us to walk to the theater across the street from our apartment and purchase tickets for Sex Drive. It wasn't quite bad enough for us to justify walking out, but had there been some pressing task we wanted to complete before Monday morning - such as laundry - I don't think we would have stuck around either.

Without last year's Superbad (a movie I liked), there would be no Sex Drive (a movie I don't). In this one, Josh Zuckerman plays Ian, the "only virgin" at his high school. I don't know what kind of high schools the writers of this, Porky's, and the American Pie trilogy attended, but when I was that age, "not getting laid" was a pretty common occurrence.

Anyway, Ian is so desperate that he decides to steal his brother's car and drive from Chicago to Knoxville, TN in order to slip the pork-sword to the mysterious "Ms. Tasty," with whom he has been corresponding. For reasons that are unclear, he takes along his philandering pal Lance (Clark Duke) and his long-time platonic neighbor Felicia (Amanda Crew), who is one of those very pretty actresses whom everyone thinks is hideous because she has dark hair. Will Ian and Felicia realize that they've been perfect for each other all along by the end of the movie? You'll have to sit through the 1 hour, 48 minute running time to find out.

There are some chuckles to be found here, but few solid laughs. Other major components of the movie simply shatter all credulity. What about the aforementioned, slightly chunky Lance, who somehow manages to bed female consorts "several times a week", despite the fact that he looks like the unseemly child of Rainn Wilson and the unfortunate grandkid of Charles Nelson Reilly? How about the Amish community they visit which is full of glamourous-looking, hard-rock lovin', sarcastic Mennonites, some of whom are extremely well-versed in auto-repair? And what of Ian's at-home older brother, played by the often-wonderful-but-not-here James Marsden, a guy who's clearly in his mid-30s?

I've told a select few people of how we spent our Sunday evening, and the reaction has been fairly universal: "Christ, you saw that?" For one reason or another, yes we did. And we'll have to live with that. You don't have to. See something else... anything else.