Review of 21 & Over (2013) by John M — 26 Jul 2013

The poor man's Project X, which isn't a combination of words that I ever expected to say. So this is about two friends who visit a third for his 21st birthday party, only they get him too plastered, and can't figure out where he lives.

This is a big problem, because he has an important job interview early the following day. These modern party movies really are on a downward trend; it peaked with Superbad, maximized commercial success with The Hangover, and have been declining ever since.

The quality has been unquestionably diminishing rapidly; the talent levels are waning, as there is nobody you've ever heard of in this, and there just wasn't an adequate amount of time spent in the writing room.

So much of this movie is just wandering around from one gross out scene to the next over the top shenanigan to the next vulgarity, and it's really the only thing this movie does. The premise starts spinning its wheels super fast, and these characters aren't at all likable; you have the blitzed guy who the friends fail miserably at taking care of, the traditional, smart-mouthed annoying jackass (who seems like he is doing a Vince Vaughn impression), and the straight man more interested in scoring than his buddies.

You never get a sense of why these guys would ever want to be friends with one another. One thing that Project X did do right is that they put together a really excellent soundtrack that kept the movie moving along with an energetic beat.

The music in this is all too generic, and used to underline bad montages. I do give points for trying to add a little bit of depth to these characters at points, but this is just so thinly written, it is inexcusable.