Its sequel,
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, is set to invade theaters later this month, so naturally there's a double-dip, double-disc version of the original
Van Wilder hitting DVD too. Released under the moniker of the “Gone Wilder Edition,” it might as well be
called the “Boobies Edition,” given its special, puffy plasticine slipcover of
a bulging female chest.
Though a bit late to the teen-boom party, the
silly and
shaggy but still somewhat fun Van Wilder
attempts — if not entirely successfully — to resurrect the National Lampoon’s
banner. The movie’s premise is that the fictional
Coolidge
College’s reigning BMOC,
seventh-year senior Van (
Ryan Reynolds), has to turn his avocational
party-planning skills into a vocation in an effort to stay in school when his
father (Tim Matheson) finally makes a move to cut off tuition support. In the
midst of all the craziness is uptown girl Gwen Pearson (
Tara Reid, kinda awful),
a reporter for the school paper who’s out for a crucial, portfolio-making clip
— namely, the big scoop on what really makes Van tick.
OK, let’s dispense with a few notions right off the bat.
Van Wilder’s plot matters not one iota.
I could tell you more, but it wouldn’t matter. I could tell you about the scene
where Van and his best friend Hutch (forgotten
The Real World vet Teck Holmes, above, second from left) manually stimulate a bulldog as
part of a complex revenge scheme, but it wouldn’t matter. I could attempt to
contextualize the bizarre cameos of Erik Estrada and several Los Angeles
Clippers basketball players, but it wouldn’t matter.
I could attempt to explain
Van’s “Topless Tutors” program, but… well, actually, that one pretty much
explains itself. The point is, the set pieces are stupefyingly contrived and
too stylized by just about half. But it
doesn’t matter.
No, the undeniable appeal of Van Wilder lies solely with star Reynolds, who has a comedic flair
that often plays outside the box. For all the largely deserved ridicule heaped
upon his old sitcom
Two Guys and a Girl,
there Reynolds infused every line reading with a certain gleaming, frat boy
mania. In making the leap to features, Reynolds retains much of that breezy,
high-above-the-clouds mentality, similar to the working styles of fellow
Canadians Jim Carrey and Norm MacDonald. Yet where former
Saturday Night Live vet MacDonald always seems to have snarky
contempt for both his material and his audience, Reynolds falls into the former
camp of flamboyant, high-wire comedic interpretation. If he’s ever uncertain of
a line reading or situation, you’d never know it. While he’s gone on to work
the buff, goateed look to his advantage in genre fare like
Blade Trinity and
The Amityville Horror, it’s comedy that remains his strength. He
makes it look effortless and natural, even in something as contrived as this.
So is
Van Wilder a
classic? No, not really. But Reynolds
really
recommends this, and in revisiting the movie on DVD four years after its
theatrical release,
I was struck less by its gross-out gags and colorful set
pieces than how it plays as a sort of sleepy, Sunday afternoon diamond in the
rough, with bit roles for Curtis Armstrong (
Revenge of the Nerds) and Paul Gleason (
The
Breakfast Club), as well as the aforementioned Matheson. Clearly, its
makers envision the movie as belonging to the long, proud tradition of
willfully gross, youth-skewing college comedies, and there’s a charm to be
found in this unapologetically streamlined, singular vision. For what it aims
to be,
Van Wilder succeeds fairly
smashingly.
As previously mentioned, this special two-disc
Van Wilder: Gone Wilder edition release
comes in an Amray case with a plastic-hinged tray that is in turn stored in a plasticine
slipcase. The kitsch value is enhanced by the fact that the chest of the
faceless cover girl — whose wife-beater T-shirt sports the movie’s title and
logo — is raised,
allowing you to touch three-dimensional plastic boob without
having to actually date a would-be Hollywood starlet.
Van Wilder is
presented here in both 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 full screen transfers,
the former preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation.
The transfers are solid though not spectacular, and seem likely to be imported
from the movie’s previous DVD release. Free from any obvious digital artifacts,
the movie’s color levels are crisp and bright, though there are some occasional
problems with a bit of grain, most notably in a few montage sequences. The movie’s dialogue is cleanly and clearly captured in a
fairly straightforward and unchallenging English language Dolby digital 5.1
audio track.
Atmospherics are integrated quite sparsely throughout, and
surround is only really put to the test in a few blandly mixed party sequences.
From a technical/functional level, this is fine, but in my book the audio mix
grades out as uninspiring in its imagination. English and Spanish subtitles are
also included.
Spread out over two discs, the release’s slate of bonus
material is expansive, so much so that the DVD’s interface is very slow-moving. Imported from the
previous DVD release are nine deleted scenes, the funniest of which involve
Van’s meeting with the campus Black Caucus, a forward-looking fantasy scene
with
a cameo from Joyce Brothers and, painfully, a masculinized spin on the
“Topless Tutors” scheme. Also holdovers are a dozen separately presented
outtakes, a 21-minute Comedy Central special promotion of the movie and Sugarcult’s
“Bouncing of the Walls” music video.
As for the new material,
an appropriately billed “drunken
idiot” feature-length audio commentary track gathers a few fans of the film,
and costar Jason Winer hosts the five-minute “Ultimate College Party Guide,” which
provides roughly the same amount of laughs. On the second disc, the 16-minute
making-of featurette “Party Legends, Pledges and Bullies” is full of pretty
amusing behind-the-scenes footage, and several of the filmmakers assert Holmes
had to engage in some real canine jack-off action (an allegation Holmes himself
denies). “Testicles of the Animal Kingdom” is an interactive quiz about exactly
what it sounds like, while the text-based “Write That Down” spotlights most of
Van’s quotable moments. “Gwen-ezuma’s Revenge,” meanwhile, provides a
seven-minute at the work of a sound effects foleyman, who in this case works up
the lurid after-effects of ingesting a “Mega Colon Blow.”
The breadth of material here makes for a lot of extra fun,
but without more wry, retrospective love from Reynolds, it’s not truly
complete. A collection of assorted previews rounds out the release.
Bottom line, though:
Van Wilder
delivers on its goals. Reynolds’ performance embodies the super-confident, wildly
popular college slackmaster we all wish we could have been. He’s not quite a
Ferris Bueller for the 21st century, but he’s close enough. What’s that I hear?
Chug, chug, chug… To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here.
B (Movie) B (Disc) 
