Someplace, Walt Disney is spinning in his cryogenic life chamber.
The corporate that bears his title is struggling. And who has Michael Eisner charged with saving the live-action comedies within the firm that has run ABC into the ditch, that fires blanks in its as soon as sure-handed animation division?
Harland Williams. Sure, the man well-known for breaking wind in an area swimsuit in Disney’s Rocket Man is again on the payroll. And the film he’s now co-starring in, Sorority Boys, could be the worst factor Disney has ever hooked up its Touchstone signature to. And sure, I’ve seen Rocket Man.
It’s a lame-brained try to replace Animal Home, through which Williams, who appears to be like like he’s pushing 40, performs one in every of a trio of frat boys who get tossed out of their fraternity. Their scheme to get again into Kappa Omicron Kappa includes sneaking in to retrieve an incriminating video that has each a theft and many footage of one in every of our heroes as he beds each girl on campus.
Oh, and to try this they’ve to decorate up like ladies and be a part of the sorority, Delta Omicron Gamma, subsequent door.
Relating to the fraternity and the sorority, spell out the initials and say them out loud. The characters within the film do . . . repeatedly.
And who wouldn’t wish to get again into Kappa? The beer busts, the orgies, the sleazy legions of self-esteem-deprived babes who wish to intercourse them up, plainly that is the place to be on this specific campus. They hurl intercourse toys on the sororities and toss nets over girls whom they deem want “dog-catching.”
There’s additionally an enthralling hazing ritual through which a girl who has stayed in a single day to have intercourse with one of many lads is jeered and photographed as she tries to gather herself and stroll out the entrance door.
Barry Watson of TV’s Seventh Heaven is Dave, the shallow, Shakespeare-quoting ringleader on this trio of boys who will likely be ladies. Michael Rosenbaum of TV’s Smallville is Adam, the women’ man. After which there’s Williams, he of the 4 chins and grossout jokes. They’ve about three laughs amongst them.
The concept right here is to take a few of what Tootsie taught a person about what it’s like in a girl’s world and marry it to the system frat-boy comedy. The boys notice what cretins they’ve been and assist the women of D.O.G., led by the gorgeous Melissa Sagemiller (Get Over It), avenge themselves on the jerks throughout the road.
However there’s no studying curve, and the frat boys’ comeuppance is supremely unsatisfying. The gags are too typically of the tampon/ shared showers/ “Does this skirt make my butt look fats?” selection. However this will likely be fun riot to anybody who hasn’t seen males in attire earlier than — 14-year-olds and their mental equivalents.
Again within the late ’70s, Animal Home introduced status-quo-preserving, conformity-building fraternities again into favor after the enlightened individualism of the ’60s. You could possibly see frat boys lining up for this movie, feverishly taking notes on the dishonest scams, toga events and different issues they may do to revive Greek life on campus.
Lots of the lesser lights of that movie, from Stephen Furst and John Vernon to James Daughton and Mark Metcalf, seem in Sorority Boys. John Belushi, it seems, was the fortunate one.
May this be a success and sign a brand new plummet down collegiate debauchery lane? Sorority Boys may do for sexism, date rape and anorexia what Animal Home did for meals fights.
And Disney? They’re having it each methods. One can solely hope that the G-rated The Rookie does higher than this R-rated shame. In any other case, Walt might by no means wish to thaw out.
