Well here’s another offering in the banally repetitive Hollywood bandwagon of teen movies. If there is one thing Hollywood lacks right now, it is good screenplay writers. Good writers period. Orange County is yet another attempt by unimaginative filmmakers at drawing the adolescent American audience by injecting tasteless humor into an already baseless storyline.
What struck me as odd about the movie was the presence of some very high profile actors and actresses. Here are the ones I recognized:
John Lithgow of ’’3rd rock from the Sun’’ fame.
Lily Tomlin of ’’Beverly Hillibillies’’ fame.
Catherine O’Hara of ’’Home Alone’’ fame.
Jack Black of ’’Saving Silverman’’ and ’’Shallow Hal’’ fame.
Ben Stiller of ’’Meet the Parents’’ fame.
Kevin Kline of ’’French Kiss’’ and ’’A fish called Wanda’’ fame.
Chevy Chase, who’s movie credits are way too many to mention.
And even though the main characters in the movie are not well known names, they are by no means strangers to showbiz.
Colin Hanks - son of Tom Hanks.
Schuyler Frisk - daughter of Sissy Spacek.
Unfortunately though, even with such a star studded cast, the final product simply falls flat on it’s face.
Here’s a quick run down on the story and after I’m done, you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions.
Shawn Brumder is a surf punk kid who hangs out with his surf buddies at the Orange County beach getting stoned. When one of his surfer pals kicks the bucket, our pal goes to the beach to grieve and voila.. in a very strange Jumanji-esque way, he comes across a book written by a Stanford author named Marcus Skinner that mysteriously transforms him from a pothead to a straight A student who scores 1550 on the SATs. Inspired by Skinner’s work, Shawn starts writing this book on Orange County and mails it to Skinner. Kind of odd how things work out with kids these days. Trying to rationalize a storyline like this is like trying to teach Sinhalese to a monkey.
Anyway niceties apart, we are now introduced to Shawn’s family which is undeniably a dysfunctional mess. Shawn lives with his mother who lives by the bottle, his brother who can be best described as a crackhead loser, and some handicapped guy on a wheelchair named Bob(for three quarters of the movie you probably wont know who he really is). Shawn’s father is a business tycoon married to a woman who sleeps with everyone but him. Shawn also has a girlfriend who is probably the least idiotic of all the characters. All these people have one common agenda. They don’t want Shawn to leave for Stanford. (?!)
Totally oblivious to this little conspiracy going on around him, Shawn applies to Stanford in the hopes that one day he would become the next Marcus Skinner. But his hopes are dashed when a really corny college advisor sends the wrong transcript to Stanford (and has the audacity to defend herself). Pretty disappointed, Shawn turns to his girlfriend for help - and she arranges to have her friend’s grandfather and his wife (who are bigwigs at Stanford) visit Shawn at his house. Needless to say, the meeting is a complete fiasco, thanks to his retarded family - and Shawn realizes that he’s quickly running out of options. Eventually his dopehead brother tries to make it up to him and offers to give him a ride from Orange County to Stanford so Shawn could persuade the dean to include him in the student acceptance list. But once they get to Stanford, all hell breaks lose. Yep we’re talking about a dean who pops in some X (Ecstasy) thinking they’re headache pills when Shawn and his girl go to visit him.. and Shawn’s brother who’s so high he burns down Stanford’s admissions building while getting hot and heavy with the dean’s secretary IN the dean’s office AFTER breaking in. Talk about a stretch there.
At this point, Shawn realizes his dreams have just vaporized - but what’s worse is his girlfriend now starts giving him heartburn for not caring about her and wanting to attend Stanford instead and leaves him staring at the ground beneath him. (If that weren’t a cue to dump the chick , then by god I don’t know what is). So as our hero aimlessly wanders through the campus wondering what to do with himself, he meets some odd chick who , out of nowhere, decides to invite him to attend one of their frat parties. And there he spots his girlfriend getting her vibe on with another frat kid. How passe. Anyway while eavesdropping on their conversation, he fumbles and plonks on to the ground (from the second floor, but he gets up and brushes himself off without a scratch - another unsolved mystery for those of you who give a damn). But his girl blows him off.. so our star-crossed hero picks himself up and starts purposelessly meandering through the campus when all of a sudden he sees someone familiar. It’s the author of the book he found on the beach! Totally psyched about meeting his icon, our pal goes and makes a complete fool of himself in front of Mr Skinner who later invites him to his office for a little tete-a-tete. They talk about the book Shawn sent in and Skinner says ’’All it needs is an ending’’. And you couldnt agree with him more. The movie just needed to end.
And end it did, in all it’s insipid glory after his weed smoking anarchist brother who needs to escape from the cops after the little fire incident drives Shawn over to the party where after a ridiculous scene, his girlfriend comes back to him... they go home.. only to find that his parents have gotten back together (I won’t even bother explaining how) and they’ve made arrangements for him to go to Stanford! But a few minutes of soul searching in his room makes him change his mind and everybody’s happy and they all live happily ever after...(lights out).
I’m beginning to wonder if Hollywood filmmakers actually see their own creations. I would say there is maybe about 2 minutes in this entire movie that could be termed worth watching. Colin Hanks is nowhere near his father in terms of charisma or acting ability. Jack Black’s role is unfortunate because he gets to play a crack smoking imbecile - a serious insult to his talent. Again Catherine O’Hara playing the drunk mom doesnt do any justice to her talent as an actress/comedienne. The others pretty much play cameos for the most part - all the really good actors are terribly underutilized. Orange County had the potential to be a really funny movie. But this movie is a classic case of poor karma - actors dont make a movie - directors do - and when a director sucks, no matter how good the cast is, you can bet that the movie’s going to be a blow out.