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PLOT: The latest cinematic slacker-turned-entrepreneur is Bartleby "B" Gaines (Justin Long), who invents his own university after he's rejected from eight others. Problem is, enrollment at the fictional school catches on.
Teen comedies have a long history of portraying high school rebels who've bucked the system, entertaining audiences in the process:
* Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) from Fast Times At Ridgemont High,
* Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise) from Risky Business,
* Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves) from Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure,
* Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) from Ferris Bueller's Day Off .
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You get the picture.
And while Accepted's Bartleby "B" Gaines doesn't make it into that esteemed group of characters, Justin Long at least gives it the good ol' college try in his first leading role on the big screen.
Long, whose credits include Dodge Ball and TV's Ed, stars as Bartleby, a born entrepreneur who is shown in the movie's opening scenes manufacturing fake I.D. for his fellow high school classmen.
Sadly, he can't make that business acumen translate into acceptance at any of the eight universities he's applied to and is terrified to tell his hardass father (Mark Derwin).
So instead of facing up to both his own rejection and harsh parental reaction, Bartleby invents his own university on made-up letterhead so that he can show an acceptance letter to his parents.
His plan backfires when his parents demand to see the school he's attending and he's forced to turn an abandoned psychiatric facility into the so-called South Harmon Institute Of Technology -- or S.H.I.T. for short -- and recruit a fictional dean (wonderfully played by the ranting, foul-mouthed Lewis Black of The Daily Show fame).
Joining Bartleby in this entrepreneurial adventure are his trusty pals, most notably Jonah Hill (The 40-Year Old Virgin) as his computer-saavy best friend Schrader and spaced-out foodie Glen (newcomer Adam Herschman).
Things get really sticky when Schrader invents such a convincing website that hundreds of college rejects -- I especially like the A.D.D. guy and the one who wants to blow things up with his mind -- turn up for the first day of school, expecting to get an education.
First-time director Steve Pink (screenwriter of Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity) shows a sure hand with comedy but it's a shame he didn't also write the script, which underestimates the smarts of its teen target audience.
Instead we get the braniac screenwriters whose credits include such stinkers as New York Minute and Herbie: Fully Loaded.
And Long, who was so funny on Ed, is more of a straight man here with Hill and Herschman getting the best lines and, along with Black, stealing the movie in the process.
BOTTOM LINE: Justin Long is a cutie with a flair for comic timing but it's his sidekicks -- Jonah Hill (The 40-Year Old Virgin) as his best friend, newcomer Adam Herschman as a spaced-out foodie, and acerbic and foul-mouthed comic Lewis Black as a fictional college dean -- who shine brightest here. Strictly for teens.
(This film is rated PG)