College Road Trip

Martin Lawrence, who hasn't been involved in a worth while movie since Abraham Lincoln was president, is back again. My friends talked me into seeing this (instead of a good movie), promising to each pay me the cost of admission if it turned out to be as awful as we had been warned. "Oh, the critics are never right," they said. Yes, the critics are right about this film, and at least I won the bet, but it was a painful way to earn 50 bucks.

Lawrence just makes a fool out of himself. The premise is worthless to begin with: frantic dad sticks his nose in his daughter's business as she begins her college career. There is no humor in that. Somehow, it gets worse. The writing is abysmal; of note are the endless babbling speeches by Lawrence, pre-school intelligence level gags, stereotypical characterizations that went out with the dinosaurs, and horribly executed slapstick scenes. The direction is zero: it just poses Lawrence in your face like he's doing a stand-up routine, while other nameless characters do a lousy job of trying to pretend they think he's funny. The amateurish cast's irritating over-acting makes this cinematic flop even more torturous.

The audience, like the daughter character in the film, will want to escape from Lawrence's manic ramblings as quickly as possible. Expect this one to have a very short general-release lifetime before it gets shelved in the 99 cent video grocery store bin, and mercifully forgotten.