Sex Drive: Movie Review

Sex Drive: Movie Review

Rating 6/10
Cast: Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew, Clark Duke, Seth Green, James Marsden
Director: Sean Anders
When a film opens with what feels like a cast off scene from the first American Pie film, you're always left with a feeling something predictable and formulaic is coming.
Sex Drive is the latest addition to the sex crazed teen phenomenon so successfully mined by American Pie, Road Trip et al.
Josh Zuckerman is 18-year-old Ian Lafferty who's pursuing an online relationship with the implausibly named Ms Tasty.
Desperate to seal the deal and leave the virgin territory behind, Lafferty decides to steal his brother Rex's 69 GTO and drive 9 hours across America to get his leg over.
So grabbing his best friends Lance (Clark Duke) and Felicia (an Avril Lavigne looking Amanda Crew) he sets off on the journey, having (slightly genre predictable) adventures on the way.
Sex Drive is nothing new - it's at times a blatant rip off of all of the various teen sex comedies; as mentioned its opening sees a naked Zuckerman humiliated in front of his father and family (a la American Pie) and from thereon, it continues to plunder the typical situations so familiar to the genre.
James Marsden's character Rex is essentially the new version of the Stifler character from American Pie - he shows little depth to the bullying brother and yet, somehow he's quite likeable (even if the final scene revelation involving his character could be seen coming a mile off)
Clark Duke's Lance is the new pudgy entry to the lothario genre - he's essentially an inflated Austin Powers and wannabe Hugh Hefner - but unsurprisingly, his sexually confident swagger is just a façade.
Granted you can see the ending of this film coming a mile off - Lafferty heads off with a female friend to lose his virginity to some "babe he met on the internet" (please don't make me solve the jigsaw for you).
But where Sex Drive manages to succeed (and is likely to spawn further sequels) is the journey is pleasantly enjoyable, even if it is derivative.
The road trip, rites of passage, sexual awakening and crass laughs are all played well - as is the constant use of Lafferty's embarrassment ending up on the internet (via Youtube) seconds after it's played out on the screen.
All three of the leads acquit themselves likeably - with all of them suffering from ritual humiliation as the journey goes on.
However, it's Seth Green's cameo as a sarcastic Amish villager which steals the show - his deadpan delivery and improvised schtick are a real highlight (and difference) in Sex Drive - and kudos to the script writers who only use him to hilarious effect sparingly - it could so easily have been overmilked and ruined.

Ultimately, some will feel Sex Drive has seen screenplays from American Pie, Road Trip, Eurotrip (and all the rest of them) thrown into a blender, pulped and formulaically poured back into the script; whereas the younger audience (whom this is squarely aimed at) will lap up its crudity, nudity (both male and female) and gutter humour.