Road Trip a no-brainer

Remember when the wrong things always seemed like the right things to do at the time.

That was college, if you were an under-achiever, a general arts student with less than eight hours of classes a week, or pick one.

A) Worked at the student pub.

B) Purchased books first year only.

C) Sometimes searched on night tables the morning after for envelope-with-address to figure out where you were.

Which brings us to Todd Phillips' Road Trip, an under-achieving romp purposely pursuing the Animal House feeling as a tribute to its gross national product.

So as not to complicate things, the plot does not require pre-screen cramming. Ready? Begin.

Four college kids drive from Ithaca to Austin. Their mission? To retrieve a sexy videotape mistakenly sent to one of the tripper's girlfriends.

Before they leave for Austin, on the way, and after they get there, frat-house-style laughs are mixed with lots of collegiate stunts. Not surprising, since Frat House was Phillips' last movie.

In this one, folks with higher standards should know that breasts are bared, buttholes are surfed and blind people are mocked. Producer Ivan Reitman should be almost as proud of this as he is of having produced Animal House.

Appropriately, Ottawa's Tom Green is the stay-at-Ithaca narrator. Unless you've been library bound for the last few years, you know that the cancer-recovering Green is an MTV host and the candid camera master of guerrilla comedy theatre.

He is a University Of Ithaca student lifer who tells the sorry, sordid Road Trip tale while hosting a school tour. Green mostly looks as if he slept by his subway stop after making bail. He also sticks a mouse in his mouth while feeding a snake. The kids, apparently, love this.

The gang of four road warriors is where the action is. They are a likable composite of the Animal House crew.

There is Breckin Meyer, who plays the normal guy whose girlfriend was mailed the sex video. Meyer might be remembered as the Clueless surfer doofus.

The weirdo, defined by DJ Qualls, and the smart guy, as portrayed by Paulo Constanzo, are newcomers and are just fine. Although they aren't as memorable as Amy Smart, who got our attention in Varsity Blues, and does so again here as the normal guy's fling thing that ends up on the VCR.

Seann William Scott, formerly the American Pie jock, does a horny Animal House Otter as if he's Jim Carrey's distant cousin. Mostly, that's a good thing.

Scott's scalawag also provides a neat service by listing the rules of cheating. Like it's not cheating if you have different area codes, if you can't remember the act, and if you do it with two others because they cancel each other out.

There are rules to liking Road Trip, too.