With National Lampoon's Van Wilder you'll likely hate yourself for laughing, but laugh you will.

This is the guiltiest kind of guilty-pleasure movie. The jokes are crude, rude and obvious. The actions of the characters are basically unredeemable and the tone of this film is decidedly chauvinist.

That noted, it's the funniest gross-out youth comedy since Road Trip and the American Pie flicks and it's infinitely better than the recent Sorority Boys.

Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) is a legend at Coolidge College where he's been enrolled for seven years and intends to stay for another seven. He occasionally attends classes but his real forte is organizing impromptu parties, counselling freshmen and seducing co-eds.

The fates that had looked after Van Wilder for so long suddenly conspire against him. His father Vance Wilder (Tim Matheson, who played a character similar to Van Wilder in the seminal National Lampoon movie, 1978's Animal House) announces he's cutting off Van's allowance at the same time as the editor of the college paper (Tom Everett Scott) decides to expose Van.

The unpopular task falls on the shoulders of aspiring reporter Gwen Pearson (Tara Reid), whose instant hatred of everything Van Wilder inevitably turns to love.

The plot is just an excuse to string together the unsubtle, slapstick jokes. A good third of the jokes fall flat but the ones that connect are wildly, wickedly funny.

Most of the winning moments come from Reynolds, whose dry delivery makes the mayhem seem all the more ridiculous. His Van Wilder is a cross between Tom Hanks and Chevy Chase and the fact he doesn't push the jokes makes them all the funnier.

The running gags with Van's dog and his exchange student apprentice Taj Mahal Badalandabad (Kal Penn) get increasingly vulgar and increasingly hilarious.

Ever since the box-office bonanza of American Pie, youth comedies have been pushing the bad-taste envelope and Van Wilder is no exception. There are at least six scenes that involve such cheap shots they're inexcusable. They produce groans and gasps rather than guffaws.

Considering she was in both American Pie films, Reid seems woefully ill at ease with Van Wilder's raunchy tone. Her delivery is flat and lacking in comic timing.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder doesn't exactly set new standards in low-brow humour but it does plumb the depths it aspires to. (More on: National Lampoon's Van Wilder).

(This film is rated AA)

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