Fairfield Country Weekly - Eurotrip

Director: Jeff Schaffer. Screenwriters: Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer. Cast: Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester, Jessica Boehrs, Fred Armisen, Lucy Lawless, Vinnie Jones, Kristin Kreuk. (R)

Another movie not nearly as awful as you'd suppose: Eurotrip , trumpeted as "from the producers of Old School and Road Trip ," in case there was any question about the target audience here.

Four teens (Scott Mechlowicz, Jacob Pitts, Michelle Trachtenberg, Travis Wester--of whom the only known quantity is Trachtenberg, known for her role as the kid sister of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ) use the summer between high school graduation and college to knock around Europe. As one tells another, both bluntly and correctly: "America was founded by prude. We go to Europe to reclaim our birthright of hot sex." Thus they will visit a) a nude beach; b) an Amsterdam sex club; c) the Vatican. Curiously, the best sex will be found at option "c," which is part of this lowbrow exercise's scabrous charm, which includes one grotesquely amusing sequence set in a hellhole detour to Eastern Europe, where life is so rough that a curbside dog is seen chomping on a severed hand.

Alas, the lead players exhibit zero charisma, but cameos from Matt Damon, Lucy Lawless and SNL's Fred Armisen spark up the proceedings. And the film does earn its R-rating by showing plenty of skin (though Buffy fans will be distressed when Trachtenberg is kept from untying her bikini). Curiously innocent yet often startlingly smarmy (what, exactly, happens to the unlucky fellow at that Amsterdam club?), Eurotrip provides a fascinating cultural counterpoint. You can catch it at the same megaplexes which are running The Passion of Christ next door.