Accepted

Accepted
Cast: Justin Long
Studio: Universal
Rating: 4/10

THE STORY: High schooler Bartleby Gaines (“B” to his friends) is on his way to scoring a perfect eight out of eight college rejection letters-which isn’t going to go over big with his parents. At least, he’s not alone-several of his posse of oddball friends are in the same, college-less boat. What’s a guy, facing down a lifetime career as a convenience store clerk, going to do?

Created his own college, of course. B calls in some friendly favors-has a techie bud build a website, convinces another friend’s burnout uncle to pose as the dean and organizes a clean-up/building party at a local abandoned mental hospital-and South Harmon Institute of Technology is born.

Just as B and his fellow South Harmon classmen are settling into their charade, they realize they’ve done their jobs too well as dozens of other college rejects show up for classes at this off-the-radar institute. Under the scornful eyes of the privileged students and faculty from the neighboring college, B and friends forge ahead with maintaining a functioning (and fake) university. Their effort to keep up the use quickly escalates into a battle between the have-nots of South Hamon and the have-snots of their “sister” school-higher learning has never stopped so low.

THE REVIEW: Accepted doesn’t have to be cinematic genius to score big—think hilarious movies such as Animal House, National Lampoon’s Vacation, or even Rock N Roll High School. The difference between those movies and Accepted is a so large you could squeeze New York through it—and not to mention it doesn’t have any of the great witty and hilarious gags those classics possess.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that most of the actors don’t have much work on their resume—because the same can be said about many other movies of a similar ilk. It’s that the actors in Accepted aren’t funny and can barely act. Novice would be an understatement. The one show stopper is Lewis Black as the Dean.

FRANKLY: Accepted will be compared to Animal House by numerous critics mostly because that is the movie they try to replicate. There is no character development so there is no reason to care what happens to any of these characters. Accepted is nothing but a hodge-podge of characters doing stupid things for no reason and that isn’t reason enough to make a movie.

+ Charlie Craine


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