Film Review: “21 and Over”
Written by: josh | March 1st, 2013
Inappropriate. Crude. Senseless. Pointless. What a terrible movie. Honestly, think about this. What would be more fun? Going out and having a couple of drinks with your friends or paying eight bucks to watch some idiot college students drink for 90 minutes? Ever since The Hangover struck gold, studios have been trying to release a ton of these buddy drinking comedies. But where The Hangover came off as comical and original, these post Hangover comedies seem repetitive and lazy. How many of these B level drinking comedies do we need? We already have The Hangover 2 and Project X. Well we gain another one this weekend with the release of 21 and Over.
In 21 and Over, two friends from high school (played by Miles Teller and Skylar Astin) want to surprise their other friend, Jeff Chang, for his 21st birthday. Jeff Chang, however, has an important med school interview in the morning and doesn’t want to go out. The uncaring friends twist Jeff Chang’s wrist and force him to have a couple of drinks. But what starts out as a couple of drinks turns into a crazy night where the group finds themselves in all sorts of trouble and moral dilemmas. Eventually, the group gets lost and Jeff Chang passes out. It is now the two friends’ sole mission to figure out where Jeff Chang lives and get him home safely before he misses his med school interview.
21 and Over is the lowest form of comedy. There is nothing creative about it. Unless you giggle at male nudity or when a person says the F word, there is very little to laugh at during this movie. I want to go on record and say that it is very hard to offend me. I can laugh at something inappropriate and racist, but it has to be somewhat clever. Honestly, I was offended by this movie. It was extremely racist in so many ways. But it wasn’t offensive just because it was racist. It was offensive because all of the racist comments were dumb and unoriginal. There were so many times in the film where the audience was supposed to laugh at a character just because they were Asian or some other non-American ethnicity. Moving past the racism, it is beyond frustrating how childish the characters act. None of the characters in this film are likeable in any way. There’s no reason to relate to them and there’s certainly no reason to root for them. The only character who seems to have his life together, starts falling in love with a really sleazy college student. The character played by Miles Teller, is a total ass and feels no remorse for how much trouble he has gotten his friends into. Throughout the whole night he continues to make terrible choices and continues to drink. And when the group finds themselves in a deeper hole he says something like, “I’m sorry for trying to give you guys a good time.” Why would anyone be friends with someone who is so selfish? Speaking of Miles Teller; this guy just won a best actor award at the Sundance Film Festival for his work in The Spectacular Now. What is he doing in a mediocre film like this? After a while, you start to feel bored watching this movie. You get really tired of watching the characters go to another party and have another drink and do another stupid thing. 21 and Over is so repetitive that you start to feel dizzy. This movie is only 90 minutes long but I’m telling you, it is a long 90 minutes.
There is absolutely nothing special about 21 and Over. Not only are the jokes lazy but the plot is extremely predictable. This script must have been written in less than a day because anyone can see where the plot is going ten minutes into the movie. I will say that the film tries to have a message in the end, but the movie is so immature that I feel like no one will take the message seriously. It’s obvious that very little work went into this movie and if you pay to see it, the studio is robbing you blind. The money you work hard for is not worth it to sit through 21 and Over. The film even tries to gross you out in a scene by making two guys kiss. That’s the kind of comedy this is. If you think it’s funny and/or disgusting to watch two men kiss then you need to grow up. Definitely skip this movie. Anything you choose to do this weekend is more productive than watching this filth.
