Go to an underage drinking party in any college town across the country and you'll see basically the same thing - horny, drunk kids acting like idiots. From coast to coast and keg to keg, the parties are nearly identical, only the names, faces, and levels of alcohol poisoning change. Essentially, teen sex comedies follow the same rule. The horndogs from Porky’s to American Pie to Harold and Kumar are nearly identical - they want to get laid and have a good time. So, how do you distinguish the good from the bad? What separates Superbad from National Lampoon's Dorm Daze? Writing is naturally a big part of it, but there's something else to why American Pie works and Eurotrip does not. There's chemistry between the leads and believability in their performances that isn't as easy as it looks. The latest entry in the genre, Sex Drive, understands all of the writing cues of a teen sex comedy (even if it does misplay most of them), but it’s mostly that undefinable variable of relatable characters that is gone. Sex Drive feels like an exercise in raunchy teen comedy, instead of an original film with actual character you’re supposed to care about. It has more laughs than the average sex comedy due to some pretty original supporting performances, but there's something missing and the center is hollow. Kids will need some pretty serious beer goggles to get over the flaws of Sex Drive.

The biggest problem with Sex Drive is that we've seen all of these characters before (and the only one we haven't steals the movie). Writers of teen sex flicks underestimate their audiences desire to see something new. So, instead, we have the awkward virgin who is really in love with his best friend and the slick player who will surely be taught a lesson about love by the end. Ian Zuckerman plays the lovable loser, Josh, who is best friends with Felicia (Amanda Crew) and Lance (Clark Duke). The most ingenious thing about Sex Drive is casting Duke of internet phenomenon Clark and Michael and TV show Greek fame. Not only does Duke have the best comic timing of the three, but he's not the first actor you'd think of for a teenager who is constantly getting laid with the woman of his choice. Zuckerman and Crew on the other hand are dismally, fatally boring. We've seen this dynamic a thousand times before, and Sex Drive doesn't add anything fresh to it.

Ian works at a donut shop in the mall (usually dressed up like one) and communicates with someone he hopes is a hot woman online with the user name of Ms_Tasty. When the e-object of his affection says that she'll do him if he comes down to see her in Knoxville, it's time for Sex Drive to turn into a road movie. The love triangle steals Ian's brother Rex's (James Marsden) '69 GTO and hit the road for a series of unusual encounters including ones with an angry hitchhiker (David Koechner), a sex-crazed redneck, and a sarcastic Amish guy (a movie-stealing Seth Green).

The problem that Sex Drive makes is that the writers clear understand that their basic set-up is derivative. They have to. It's going to remind audiences of countless movies that they love. So, how does a pair of writers make their product stand above and not feel derivative? Sean Anders & John Morris make the mistake of thinking that what fans loved about Superbad was the menstrual blood on Jonah Hill's leg and push the accelerator far into the gross-out region. The movie opens with a pair of ejaculate-soaked briefs hitting a woman in the face and then tries to consistently top it. Have you wanted to see a teenager almost get defecated on, an old man’s balls, or a hitchhiker actually urninate on people? Boy, have we have a movie for you then! Sex Drive reeks of gross-out desperation, as if the only way to make your Porky’s rip-off stand out is to be grosser and grosser. Little do they know that that's exactly what makes Sex Drive so disposable. The movie is saved from complete disaster by Duke, Green, and Marsden (who is clearly having a blast improvising a riff on Sean William Scott's Stifler or, even more appropriately, Bill Paxton's Chet from Weird Science), but the awkward, poorly cast leads and the lackluster script cause this car to break down long before it reaches its destination.

Rating: TWO BONES

Reviewed by Brian Tallerico (MovieRetriever.com Film Critic)

Release Date: October 17th, 2008

Rating: R

Starring: Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew, Clark Duke, James Marsden, Seth Green, Alice Greczyn, and Katrina Bowden

Director: Sean Anders

Writer: Sean Anders & John Morris

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