Eurotrip

Starring a bunch of nobodies, leavened with a few clever star cameos, and written and directed by guys you've never heard of, Eurotrip wastes no time with the setup and getting its young stars to Europe. Upon graduating from high school, Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend (Smallville's Kristen Kreuk), who then makes out with the lead singer of the band playing at the graduation party (an oddly-placed Matt Damon, lip-synching a song called "Scotty Doesn't Know"). Simultaneously, Scotty discovers that his German e-mail pen pal, whom he thought was a guy, is actually an extremely hot blonde. Unfortunately, drunk and despondent, he has just told her to stop writing (thinking it was a guy coming on to him). Spiritually devastated, Scotty decides to head across the Atlantic with his friends - requisite crazy guy Cooper (Jacob Pitts), nerd Jamie (Travis Wester), and Jamie's tomboy sister (Michelle Trachtenberg) - to seek the Aryan beauty of his dreams.

In the grand tradition of National Lampoon's European Vacation, the fearless foursome go tripping through a succession of European capitals - really just some landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Parliament crudely Photoshopped into the background of the crude sets, all built in Prague - and have run-ins with cultural stereotypes in each one. To wit: The lads hook up with Vinnie and his "Red Army" of Manchester United thugs in a London pub and hitch a ride to Paris, at which point they try to see the Louvre but are distracted by an irritating street performer, before heading to Amsterdam to eat hash brownies and go to a sex club (where the dominatrix is played by Lucy Lawless, having far too good a time), and so on.

It's all much funnier than such a lame story has any right to be, for a number of reasons. First, the pretty unseasoned cast underplays just about everything; there's no Matthew Lillard or Seann William Scott psychotically mugging the camera. Second, with only a couple exceptions, there are no lengthy setups for the jokes, so the whole thing whips by without much fuss. Third, Rade Serbedzija appears as an Eastern European guy obsessed with Miami Vice, permanently ruining any chance he has of being taken seriously in any of his arthouse roles ever again. And lastly, it actually possesses some of that anarchic spirit which Old School - the last Ivan Reitman-produced, '80s-inspired comedy that Dreamworks released - tried so hard to achieve and never did.

Eurotrip is the opposite of this week's other comedic release, Welcome to Mooseport - whereas the cozy, big-name, lame Mooseport loads just about all its funny moments into a pretty inviting trailer, Eurotrip has one of the worst trailers of the year and easily provides three times the laughs. And you know, any movie where a dream love scene is scored by a David Hasselhoff song deserves your attention.

OK, we're sold.