Without A Paddle (DVD)
Starring: Seth Green, Dax Shepard, Matthew Lillard
Directed by: Steven Brill

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Rating: 3 (out of 5)

I know, I know. It surprised me too. I figured it would suck donkey balls.

But first of all, let me get this out of the way. Thank GOD for the Internet Movie Database. Not only is it a wonderful resource for getting details on motion pictures, but it's also an honest-to-gosh COMMUNITY. Yes, YOU TOO can add details and opinions to IMDB! And here's the best part…you don't have to be literate OR intelligent! The following is a "review" of Without A Paddle taken DIRECTLY from IMDB…by a common Interweb traveler like any of you! Let's read what "coxpam" from Tennessee has to say:

"i liked this movie.it has been a while since i seen a good movie.at first i didn't care to see it cause i thought it would be dumb but my husband talked me into it.they coulnd have picked a better name cause that name was a little cheesy...after i found out kevin bacon was in it and seth green i knew it had to be good..i give props to kevin!!!I liked the way they went down the waterfall i know if they actually had to do that it would have been real scary..i don't know if i could do somethin like that.the most funny part was when they were under that rock and were cuddled up with each other.the bear was a good scene especially when he carried seth off thinking it was a cub."

Holy crap…my spelling and grammar check just shot itself in the temple. The funny thing to me is that "coxpam" mentions a husband. I'm wondering if they wrote their own vows?

"i coxpam take u corky to be my husbnsd b/c i think your real hot and i like when u cook somtimes cuz there are nights when im to tired to put the burito's in the microwave.and u cuddle with me and stuff and I think your awsome.and were like solemates cuz we both said we wanted toby keith music too dance too today.and I cant wait for our honey moon cuz ive never been to dollywood befor.the end"

Believe it or not, Seth Green is in "little" league! He plays "shortstop"! Get it? Come on, the guy's a hobbit.

Wow, that was pretty mean of me, wasn't it? What an asshole! But I defend my caustic comments…anyone who could mistake either Matthew Lillard or Dax Shepard for Kevin Bacon deserves to be mocked soundly.

The movie opens - after SIX FUCKING TRAILERS - by completely ripping off the opening credits of The Wonder Years, although it is mercifully Fred Savage-free. We see four childhood friends having all sorts of wacky adventures in home video movies, but fortunately, not the Paris Hilton kind. There they are playing with an Indiana Jones compass! There they are building a tree house! There they are jumping over a creek on their bikes! Adorable.

AAAHHH! Suddenly, the grotesque visage of Matthew Lillard fills the screen, jolting me out of my retro-80s reminiscing of a simpler time that consisted of mostly comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and stealing the old man's vodka. Damn you, Matthew Lillard!

Suddenly, Matthew Lillard came to the realization that he's going to be Matthew Lillard forever.

This is actually part of their high-school graduation ceremony, although they're not fooling anyone by trying to pass the actual stars of the movie off as high-school students. They're way too old, even with the bad wigs. Why didn't they just dress Cher up as a cheerleader while they were at it?

For the record, the friends are Tom (Shepard), Jerry (Lillard), and Dan (Green). Oh, there's a fourth friend named Billy (Antony Starr), but since he's not famous, you know you're not going to be seeing very much of him.

Some Time Later, It turns out that Billy is headed off to Places Unknown. Jerry gives Billy a going away present…his old Indiana Jones compass. Because, you know, when you're saying goodbye to an old friend, the PERFECT gift is something that came from a box of Boo Berry 20 years ago that was HIS to begin with. It reminds me of the time when a childhood friend gave me the 20-sided dice that I'd thought I had lost in 1985 as a wedding present. It was a touching moment. The remaining Three Stooges make comments about how he's probably going to do great things…nay, not just Billy. They're ALL going to do great things!!!

The guys just finished reading my Van Helsing review. Apparently they liked it.

The movie then tells us, very helpfully, that it's ten years later. So I guess we're left to assume that 2 years passed between the high school graduation scene (Class of '92!) and the Boo Berry compass scene. Either that or the movie sat on a shelf for 2 years…either way works for me.

Fortunately, none of the Three Stooges have aged a DAY in the intervening 10-12 years. I'd love to know their secret. And, surely enough, they're doing GREAT things. For Tom, the great thing he's doing is a super-hot chick. Just as he's about to "hike the Fallopian Trail", someone comes to the door…Tony. Tom freaks out because Tony is supposed to be gone. Well, imagine his surprise when Tony turns out to be Toni…another super-hot chick. See, this is funny because they're a lesbian couple. Not just that, but a HOT lesbian couple. That's Hollywood for you...apparently all lesbians look like Portia DeRossi.

Meanwhile, Jerry is a corporate drone that would rather be surfing. He's also got a girlfriend, but being a Typical Male, he's unable to remember or care about useless minutiae like the anniversary of their first date. D'OH! Also meanwhile, Dan is a doctor. But he's not one of those "cool" doctors. He's more like a shorter version of Woody Allen, with asthma, a hundred phobias and neuroses, and a penchant for Clay Aiken and Culture Club. But he really likes girls, so he's not, you know, GAY or anything. Just a pussy.

So if Seth Green is "The Cowboy", where's the Policeman, Indian, and Leatherman?

They get the call that Billy has died in an accident, which is his own damn fault for being the not-famous friend of the four of them. Dan and Jerry show up at the funeral, looking all respectful and dignified. Meanwhile Tom shows up on a motorcycle being loud and obnoxious. Oh Tom…you're just INCORRIGIBLE! Sigh.

After the service, the three of them get tanked up and decide to check out their old tree house for old-time's sake. We find out at this point that Billy was obsessed with the legend of D.B. Cooper. He's the guy who - in 1971 - hijacked a plane and parachuted out with $200,000, never to be seen again. Supposedly, the four of them took an oath that they would one day find D.B.'s "treasure". Great plan, kids. That means that you could take, like, a YEAR OFF from having to work. Dare to dream, kids. Dare to dream. Then again, when I was a kid, I was only obsessed with getting my Paladin up to at least level 19, so who am I to say anything?

Well, that darn Billy never gave up the dream. He'd managed to find what he thought was D.B.'s landing spot, which would lead them to the treasure. Poor Billy was apparently living under the delusion that when you steal $200,000 and jump out of a plane, you'll just DROP the cash wherever you land and disappear for over 30 years. Poor Billy…good friend, but apparently a bit of a dullard.

Ha! You guys just fell down a mine shaft! You been PUINK'D!!!

We also find out that Billy had tried to get them all to go camping to look for the stash the year before, but they couldn't get their shit together long enough to go. So he locked all the information in their treehouse. Makes sense to me. Oh wait…no, no it doesn't. Again, I say Billy was a dullard. He probably married coxpam from IMDB.

Well, what else is there to do at this point than to chuck all your responsibilities to go hunting for that treasure? So, off they are, on their last chance to do something "really stupid" as friends.

I don't think I need to tell you that chaos, naturally, ensues. They encounter no end of hysterical stereotypes. There's the redneck sheriff (Ray Baker), the wise Native American river guide (Gregory Norman Cruz), the hillbilly pot-farmers (Abraham Benrubi and Ethan Suplee), the hot-but-hairy hippies (Rachel Blanchard and Christina Moore), and the grizzled old mountain man who's spent 30 years in a cabin, living as a hermit, and probably cornholing everything in site (Burt Reynolds). The only thing they forgot was the retarded kid playing the banjo. Maybe they're saving it for the sequel.

"Dear Playbear: I never thought these letters were real. But recently I had an experience with a short, pasty camper that changed my mind..."

Oh, and there's a bear and a whole lot of poopie and gay jokes. Because poopie and gay jokes are exactly what we need more of. One day, someone will write a movie that's ALL poopie and gay jokes. It will be the Comedy Hit Of The Year, and will probably star Adam Sandler and Jack Black. Then the apocalypse will arrive, and I for one will welcome those four horsemen with open arms, welcoming The End Of It All.

It really is kind of a stupid movie, but that's not to say that there aren't enjoyable aspects to it. I fully admit that I laughed a lot more than I should have. A big part of a successful buddy picture is the buddies should have chemistry as buddies, and mroe often than not they don't. In Without A Paddle, it was very easy to believe that these Three Stooges were lifelong friends. They banter back and forth a lot, with a nice healthy dose of sarcastically taking the piss out of each other. It's not comedy gold or anything, but some decent laughs come from the way these guys talk to each other. Like when Tom decides he's going to catch some fish by "shining" them with a flashlight.

TOM:Shine the fish…an old Cherokee trick.
JERRY: Oh yeah…I forgot the Cherokee had been using the flashlight for thousands of years.
DAN: Didn't they pioneer the D battery?

Okay, it's not Oscar Wilde, but it's still good for a few laughs.

"You think THIS canoe trip was bad? I should tell you about the one I took with Ned Beatty and Jon Voight sometime!"

The actors are decent enough, I guess. Green is funny but mildly annoying, which is what he's best at. Lillard managed to make me NOT want to drop a piano on his head, which is rare. But the surprise here was Dax Shepard, who is a LOT funnier than I thought "That Guy From Punk'd" would have any right being. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Shepard in more movies.

Other than that, it's a fairly predictable comedy, but it's essentially harmless. It gets a little melodramatic at times, with the Stooges all Learning Things and Confessing Things to each other. Some of the gags are pretty sophomoric, but not as many as you might think. I think that the studio tried to cram as much potty-and-goofy shtick into the trailers as possible. That was a mistake, and probably kept a lot of people away.

As for the DVD, it's got plenty of extras. The alternate scenes are pretty entertaining, although I'd have liked to see a lot of them in the final cut. There's a cool "video" commentary as well with the cast and director, where you can really get a sense of the chemistry they have off-screen as well as on-screen.

Does ANYONE need to see this much Dax Shepard?

It's no classic, but hey, it's good for some chuckles. Now, if you'll excuse me, coxpam from IMDB is probably going to sue me for making fun of her, so I need to talk to my lawyer. Again.

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