CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Blu-Ray Review: ‘Sex Drive: Unrated and Cream-filled’ Edition Delivers What Title Promises
Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The Blu-Ray for the raunchy teen comedy “Sex Drive” is simply ridiculous. And I think I mean that in a good way. As a DVD critic, I’m constantly faced with “Unrated” editions that don’t really live up to their name. You can say a lot about “Sex Drive,” but the Blu-Ray is undeniably “Unrated and Cream-filled”.
We’ve all seen unrated DVDs with a minute or two of extra footage, none of which would have earned the film anything harder than an R in theaters. That is NOT the case with “Sex Drive”. Playing with the very concept of “Unrated” DVDs, the team behind “Sex Drive” have made what I would call the “Horny Stoner Version” of their teen sex comedy and it almost needs to be seen to be believed.
Sex Drive was released on Blu-Ray on February 24th, 2009.
Photo credit: Summit
The unrated version, which the writers warn you sucks at the beginning, includes twenty minutes of gratuitous nudity and alternate takes. How gratuitous? Occasionally, they’ll just green screen in some boobs or a flaccid penis. It’s ridiculous but the guts it took to even burn it to Blu-Ray is somewhat admirable.
Sex Drive was released on Blu-Ray on February 24th, 2009. Photo credit: Summit |
But what about the movie itself? Watch a bit of the unrated version just to admire its ridiculousness, but stick with the theatrical version, a so-so teen sex comedy that will play better at homes than it did in theaters. Not nearly on the scale of “Superbad” or even the “Harold and Kumar” movies, “Sex Drive” feels ultimately hollow but features some pretty original supporting performances. Even still, kids will need some serious beer goggles to get over all of the flaws of “Sex Drive”.
The problem is that we’ve seen all of these characters before. I’ve long said that writers of teen sex flicks underestimate their audiences desire to see something new. “Superbad” worked because it felt fresh. Nothing about “Sex Drive” feels fresh. Only the levels of alcohol poisoning have changed.
Once again, we have the awkward virgin who’s really in love with his best friend and the slick player who will surely be taught a lesson about love by the film’s end. The lovable loser this time is Josh (Ian Zuckerman), the best friend is Felicia (Amanda Crew), and the playa is Lance (Clark Duke). In an inspired bit of casting, Duke, most well-known for the internet phenomenon “Clark and Michael” with best friend Michael Cera, is not the first person most would think of for a ladies man. It’s the only thing inspired about “Sex Drive”.
Duke has good comic timing and supporting players Seth Green and James Marsden can be very funny but Zuckerman and Crew are a black hole for comedy, sucking the project in with boring characters and dull personalities.
Sex Drive was released on Blu-Ray on February 24th, 2009. Photo credit: Summit |
Ian works at a donut shop at the mall and has been communicating with an online girlfriend (he hopes) named Ms_Tasty. The road movie begins when the object of Ian’s e-affection says she’ll do him if he comes down to Knoxville. The trio pile into their brother’s ‘69 GTO and begins a series of unusual encounters with an angry hitchhiker, sex-crazed redneck, and a sarcastic Amish guy.
The writers clearly know that “Sex Drive” is derivative and their solution was merely to push up the gross-out humor to eleven. The movie opens with underwear soaked in male fluids hitting a woman in the face and spend another 105 minutes trying to top it. It’s gross-out desperation. And it reeks.
The movie is saved from complete disaster by Duke, Green, and Marsden (who is clearly having a blast improvising a riff on Sean William Scott’s Stifler or, even more appropriately, Bill Paxton’s Chet from “Weird Science”), but the awkward, poorly cast leads and the lackluster script cause this car to break down long before it reaches its destination.
The “Unrated and Creme-filled” version of “Sex Drive” includes the aforementioned unrated edition, a filmmaker audio commentary on the original version, the hilariously named “Sex Drive: Making a Masterpiece,” “The Marsden Dilemma,” and “Clark: Duke of the Internet”. The film is presented in 1080p with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.
By BRIAN TALLERICO |
You’re a douche, what the
You’re a douche, what the hell do you know? What are you, like 40?
The movie isn’t a great
The movie isn’t a great movie, but it has no delusions on what it is. With the plot of a guy driving cross state just to get some ass, there’s not a lot of directions you can go with it. The makers know this, so they make the best of it.