Review: We’ve been down this road before

Sex Drive
2/4 stars
Release date: Oct. 17

The potholes along the way are sure to entertain in the movie Sex Drive. But we’ve all been down this bumpy road before in every other teenage comedy.

The plot of Sex Drive, which some Kwantlen students got to see after the KSA arranged for a pre-release screening, has been done in other movies such as Road Trip, Euro Trip, American Pie and many more coming-of-age tales. What seem to differentiate the teenage misadventures are the only misadventures themselves.

Ian Lafferty, played by Josh Zuckerman, is tired of being an 18-year-old virgin. His macho older brother, Rex, played by James Marsden is constantly accusing him of being gay, and his best friend, Lance, played by Clark Duke, is a ladies man, who’s pressuring Ian to rid of his virginity.

So when Ms.Tasty, a woman Ian has met on the internet, tells him that if he drives from Chicago to her home in Knoxville she’ll go all the way with him, Ian steals his brother’s ’69 GTO and heads out with Lance. When Ian’s good friend, Felicia, played by Amanda Crew, goes along for the ride, she becomes the first complications of many, including a trailer park brawl, travel through Amish country and an abstinence seminar.

Director Sean Anders takes his time developing the characters by throwing them into far-out, true-to-life scenarios, such as Ian’s minimum wage job, where he walks around the local mall wearing a giant doughnut costume.

James Marsden takes on an aggressive role that he hasn’t played before, kicking and screaming his way throughout the movie. He nailed the role of the testosterone-driven young male and looks like he had fun doing it.

There were some hilarious scenes reminiscent of American Pie, without Eugene Levy, involving Ian’s step-mother, whose timing couldn’t be worse.

Mindless entertainment can be good at times, but the movie gets tiring. A lot of scenes have been done before, and some jokes fall flat. This movie has its laugh-out-loud funny parts, but for the most part it is another teenage road trip story. And to be honest, that’s getting old.

With edgier coming-of-age movies have hit the theatres, such as Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, this movie reeks of clichés and mindless entertainment.

But if you’re not sick of those movies where there’s that guy who is still a virgin, goes on a road trip with his friends, sees a lot of topless girls, gets in fights and reaches an epiphany, then you’ll like Sex Drive.