Rated R: For crude and sexual content, pervasive language, some graphic nudity, drugs and drinking.
Grade: C-
Runtime: 93 minutes
Verdict: 21 & Over maybe good for a laugh with a few friends but it’s a premise that has been done so many times and so much better by now.
From the “brilliant” minds that brought you “The Hangover” (aka that one movie that your friend won’t shut up about how freaking funny it is) and “Hangover Part II”: Holy @#$% We Made HOW Much Money From The First One Guys? comes the inebriated bastard child 21 & Over. Odds are pretty good you can work out what the movies about on your own. Did you guess obnoxious friends in name only go out for a crazy night of drinking and debauchery, get into some completely implausible and very illegal shenanigans, and have to make it to a certain place at a certain time with their friend whose life they selfishly almost ruined? Check, check, and check plus.
The combined creative prowess of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore is pretty limited to just the one good idea they’ve ever had with “Hangover”, and they are more than content to run their unfunny, drunken debauchery into the ground as long as people keep paying to see bigger train wrecks than themselves. For all their bluster about friendships, these films really are really less about friendships and more about selfish idiots whose lives would be much better if they WEREN’T friends, but I digress.
The comparison to the writing duo’s more popular franchise is unavoidable. I wouldn’t be surprised if “21 & Over” was initially pitched as a prequel to “Hangover” that never fell through. One certainly doesn’t have a hard time imagining this as a sort of Muppet Babies take on the franchise. But is it actually funny? A broken clock is right at least a few times a day, and the one thing Lucas and Moore have going for them is that they occasionally stumble onto some pretty funny, if predictable set ups. But their inability to write likeable or believable characters hasn’t gone away.
“21 & Over” tells the story of two friends , Casey and Miller (Skylar Astin and Miles Teller) who come to visit their straight laced, straight A buddy Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) to take him out to celebrate his 21st birthday. Jeff’s initially reluctant to comply with his friends wishes as he has an interview with a top medical school tomorrow morning. But with a little coaxing (and outright psychological bullying) they convince him to come with them for the supremely overrated “right of passage” to get his first drink. Needless to say the events play out exactly as you’d imagine. The film manages to part ways with “Hangover” by instead of having the plot be “try to find their friend”, they spend the night trying to find his house because Jeff is too intoxicated to remember; and apparently they never bothered to remember his address (a fact of idiocy that is glossed over).
So you have an incredibly stupid premise with a predictable outcome. “21 & Over” goes to all the places you’d expect and then some; sex jokes, body humor, vomit, racists jokes, homophobic jokes, etc. All of them by the way delivered by just one annoying character in the space of a few times per minute. There’s really nothing new here that you won’t be expecting. The actors do a good enough job with what little material there is to work with, and there are times when some really creative laugh-out-loud moments come through. But as a whole most of the jokes fall between either being tasteless or just mean-spirited. “21 & Over” may be good for a laugh with a few friends but it’s a premise that has been done so many times and so much better by now.
