Again, just what you expect from a film like this. The dialogue and music come out loud and clear, so no major problems here either. There are subtitles available in English, Spanish, and French as well. The audio included is available in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound. No major problems, though, and about on par with other new direct-to-DVD releases. The quality is pretty good with some slight graininess noticeable in some scenes. The video included is available in widescreen color presented at the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which is enhanced for 16:9 TVs.
That basically means this film is definitely skippable material. Van Wilder: Freshman Year is also not that great of a prequel, since it doesn’t really matter what happens in this film, because we know that the Van Wilder in the original film is the same as the Van Wilder in this film. If you enjoyed the original Van Wilder, you probably won’t enjoy this film since it’s really the same film with not as good acting. There is nothing here that you haven’t seen before. However, Van Wilder: Freshman Year doesn’t really know if it wants to be that kind of film or not. If you enjoy sex comedies, this might be worth checking out. This film was created for a certain audience. Guess what? She is also dating a militant Hitler thug who is a jerk and wants to get rid of Van Wilder. Her performance is about as good as Tara Reid, which is not saying much. You also knew there had to be a love interest and this one is played by Kristin Cavallari of MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills fame. Pretty much every other character is a stereotype from Van’s roommate, Farley Marley (Nestor Aaron Absera), a white pothead who talks like a black Jamaican to Van’s new friend Yu Dum Fuk (Jerry Shea), who is the standard Chinese exchange student who is desperate to have sex. Unfortunately, all of the characters and actors that play those characters surrounding him, aren’t that strong. Jonathan Bennett is decent enough as the lead here, but he is no Ryan Reynolds. It doesn’t help that the acting is not that great either. Nothing you really haven’t seen before, and you will probably only laugh if you a hardcore fan of the above. Much of this film is nothing more than the usual grossness, sex gags, sexual innuendo, nudity, and profanity.
It doesn’t do either film genre that well. At first, this film is your typical sex comedy, but then it turns into a romantic comedy halfway through. It also really doesn’t know what type of film it wants to be. The plot of this film is pretty much a rip-off of the original Van Wilder with storylines from Animal House and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off thrown in for good measure. So he sets out to bring sex and alcohol to the ultraconservative, religious institution and make everyone happy again. Today, the uptight, self-righteous Dean (Kurt Fuller) forbids smoking, drinking, drugs, and kissing. The only problem is that Coolidge College is not the big party school it once was. Wilder Hall enshrines the former Wilder graduates, and there’s a placeholder there for Van.
In this direct-to-DVD prequel, we learn that Van Wilder (Jonathan Bennett) is a rich kid, and his father (Linden Ashby) insists he attend Coolidge College, the school all the Wilders have attended and endowed over the years. Now both actors have moved on to bigger and better things, but that won’t stop a new direct-to-DVD prequel called Van Wilder: Freshman Year from being released in 2009. Four years later, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj had a less than stellar bow in theaters and it featured Van Wilder’s old sidekick from the first film, Taj (still played by Kal Penn). Back in 2002, a film called National Lampoon’s Van Wilder became a hit, mainly because of the performance of its star, Ryan Reynolds. The perfect example of this is the long list of American Pie films. No other film genre has had as many direct-to-DVD sequels or prequels to hit films than raunchy sex comedies.
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