Eurotrip
Starring: Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts
Directed by: Jeff Schaffer

Rating: 1 (out of five)

There's a reason why Europeans hate Americans.

Now, before y'all write angry letters, or cancel your subscription, or report me to the Department of Homeland Security, let me just say up front, I LOVE Americans. I do. After all, Renee Zellweger is American. How can you NOT love a country that produces Renee Zellweger?

No, what I'm saying is that I understand why Americans have to sew Canadian flags on their backpacks when they travel abroad.

They do it because of movies like "Eurotrip".

This movie is, without a doubt, the most culturally insensitive, stereotypical, and downright offensive movie I've seen in a long, long time. In fact, it's so insulting that I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the only time it will ever even PLAY in Europe is in The Hague, when the director is standing trial in front of a War Crimes tribunal. And yes, I AM actually equating the movie "Eurotrip" with the atrocities of Slobodan Milosevic. It's that bad.

As a further hint, the original title of the movie was "The Ugly Americans." Of course, the term "Ugly Americans" probably didn't refer to the characters as much as the writers, producers, and director of this crime against humanity.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning:

As the movie opens, we meet Scott (Mechlowicz), a not-too-bright high school graduate who is basically a less-talented clone of Freddie Prinze Jr. That's right, I said LESS TALENTED than FREDDIE PRINZE JR! At his graduation ceremony, he's publicly dumped by his slutty whore of a girlfriend Fiona (Kristin Kreuk). All while his dopey shmuck of a father (Jeffrey Tambor) catches it on videotape.

He commiserates - like a whiny little tool - to his best friend Cooper (Pitts), who is basically a less-talented clone of David Spade. That's right, I said LESS TALENTED than DAVID SPADE! He also tells his German e-mail pal Mike all about it. It seems - although it's never explained properly - that Scott started emailing this dude for something that had to do with his German class.

All this seems a little odd to Cooper. Scott describes Mike as a "pretty nice guy", but to Cooper, he's creepy. This isn't hard to believe...after all, the world was just subjected to the trial of a German cannibal who found a willing meal over the Internet. And, having dated a German girl, I can admit to the fact that Germans can be a little odd at times. Before you accuse me of being too insensitive, check out this guy (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5991/gal07.html) who is probably the most beloved German entertainer not named Hasselhoff.

Anyway, these two douchebags decide to drown their sorrows by going to a booze-soaked graduation party. It's at the party that they discover Fiona's true whorishness. There's a live band playing (because, like in all teen sex comedies, every teenager is white and rich, and can thusly afford live bands) and the lead singer (A cameo by Matt Damon, who should fucking well know better) sings a song called "Scotty Doesn't Know". The song is basically a graphic description about how he's been fucking Fiona behind Scott's back. This is actually the comedic high point of the movie.

Depressed, Scott goes home and - drunk - checks his email. This is never a good idea. Spending a lot of time drunk and on the Internet myself, I can tell you that you should NEVER check email whilst inebriated. To date, I have 6 cases of male member enlargement capsules, 3 copies of the Paris Hilton tape, something - I'm not sure what - that I won in an eBay auction, and a failed marriage...ALL due to going onto the Internet drunk. It's okay though...I'm about to get millions of dollars for helping some Nigerian dude sneak money out of the country.

But I digress. When he checks his email, he has a message from Mike. It seems he's very concerned about Scott, so he offers to come to America to meet him and "cheer him up". Scott, naturally, responds like any sane person...he fires off a violent, homophobic email and passes out in a puddle of his own bodily fluids.

The next morning, Scott's kid brother - who's about 11 years old - points out that "Mike" is actually "Mieke"...a girl. Not only that, but an impossibly hot girl. So, Scott responds like any sane person...he decides that, instead of being violently homophobic, he's actually in LOVE with Mieke. Don't worry...it didn't make sense to me either.

Of course, Mieke has now blocked his email address. So, Scott has no choice but to travel all the way to Berlin to see her in person. I mean that's the only logical thing to do, right?

Of course not. Anybody with more than a single digit IQ would sign up for a free Hotmail account, email her back, and explain the mix-up. But Scott is, apparently, retarded. So him and Cooper (also retarded) just up and fly to Europe.

And this, my friends, is where World War III will begin.

As far as "Eurotrip" is concerned, Europe is a big country full of ethnic slurs. Every possible negative stereotype you can imagine is represented here. For instance...they're in England for all of about 30 seconds before they run into a pub full of violent, psychopathic Manchester United-supporting football hooligans. Get it? It's funny, because they're foreigners.

If that's not enough, here's a list of some of the offensive things that "Eurotrip" passes off as comedy

- The depressed economies of war-torn Eastern European countries
- Incest
- A creepy Italian homosexual who molests the guys at every opportunity
- Racial slurs
- A couple having graphic sex in a confessional booth at the Vatican
- A swearing - and dancing - pope
- The rape of a male character by 2 large men with a gasoline-powered dildo trident (and sadly, this is NOT the first time I've used the phrase "gasoline-powered dildo trident" in print)
- And, if you're not laughing yet, the piece de resistance...a 5 year old German boy with a penciled-on Hitler moustache goose-stepping and seig-heiling around an apartment.

It's shit like this that makes me long for the subtle comic genius of Tom Green.

You know, I invited Mrs. Naked to see this with me. She turned me down 6 times. I countered with the argument that if I had to see it, she would have to as well. She then counter-countered by telling me that this was my JOB. I counter-counter-countered by telling her that I don't see a red cent out of writing these reviews. She counterx4ed by telling me that she knows for a FACT that I needed to review this for Day Job, and that pretending that I didn't, I was insulting her intelligence. At this point - having lost track of how many counter-arguments there were - I more or less begged her not to make me suffer through this alone. She countered THAT by staying home and either "painting the bedroom" or "watching 'American Idol.'" I still say she owes me one.

It's not enough that the movie is bad, unfunny, and contains NO characters with redeemable qualities. There are actually some very funny moments. But the Hitler thing lost me. I don't offend easily, but a 5 year old prancing around and making light of the worst mass-murderer in history just isn't my idea of comedy. I guess I'm funny that way.

Other than the odd funny scene, there are some positive things about the movie. There's a LOT of casual nudity, which is something I'm a fan of. But don't worry ladies...I believe I can say without fear of exaggeration that there are more naked men in the movie than naked women. So, in this case, everybody wins.

Michelle Trachtenberg is decent as Jenny, one of the traveling companions. Of course, her part consists of being the very "guy-like" friend of the two lead morons, who keep forgetting she's a girl. So, as a result, we're treated to about a gajillion shots of her barely-covered breasts to give these yahoos something to gawk at. Travis Wester, on the other hand, is pretty annoying as the resident "nerd" that makes up the 4th part of their quartet. And Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) is actually very funny as the creepy Italian guy.

There's also a scene in the lineup outside the Louvre that is very funny, if bizarre. It involves a fight with a French robot-mime, which could be the strangest fight scene ever filmed. I'm not even sure if "funny" is the right word...it's just so odd that it made me laugh pretty hard.

But I can't let it go. This is the worst movie I've seen so far this year, based on the stupid, logically flawed premise, two lead characters that I despised, and the rampant negative stereotyping. Oh, and the Hitler thing. Nobody that makes a movie where a 5-year-old kid pretends to be Hitler deserves to ever work in film again. The Anti-Defamation League should stop worrying so much about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" movie and feast their eyes on "Eurotrip".

My friends say I'm over-reacting. Buceta says I'm "easy to offend." That's not true. I think "The Producers" and "To Be Or Not To Be" are hysterical, and there's healthy doses of Hitler-humor in THOSE movies. I also love Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," but that's Hitler-humor of a decidedly different vein. There's a scene in "Rat Race" where Jon Lovitz accidentally evokes memories of Hitler at a Veterans meeting that could be one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie - my friend Andy and I were gasping for air we were laughing so hard.

But I'm sorry...there's a difference between THAT kid of humor, and a small, blonde-haired, blue-eyed child drawing a Hitler moustache on himself and seig-heiling and goose-stepping around an apartment, while an unfunny David Spade clone looks on and laughs. It's a difference between satire and a cheap humor.

Of course, I'm also aware that early in this review, I compared this movie to the atrocities of Slobodan Milosevic.

Look, I never said I wasn't a hypocrite.