djalexblanco Having laughed my backside off while still in my teens, continued to laugh my cheeks off with each subsequent viewing in my twenties and now, at the ripe age of 36, having recently split my sides once more on the first viewing in nearly ten years, all I can conclude is that the viewers who conspired to rate Senior Trip (as i will always know it) so badly were clearly watching the wrong kind of film for them. It's perfectly casted, over-the-top, amusingly written and acted and ticks just about every box you want from an occasionally crass teen-comedy... in fact it ticks most boxes twice, and in bold. Do not let the score deceive you. Like Flight of The Living Dead, this is a film I have shared with at least twenty people over the years, of different ages, tastes, backgrounds, genders and religions - and I've not had a single negative response.

Michael_Elliott Senior Trip (1995) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Two stoners, wanting the best for their senior year, decide to throw a party at the house of their lamebrain principal but when the big guy catches him he decides to punish everyone there with Saturday detention. Those who got caught were the previously mentioned stoners, an overweight guy who is constantly eating something, the good girl virgin, the school slut, the black guy who wants to be Malcolm X plus a computer dork who enjoys reading Playboy magazine since he can't get a real woman.In the detention center the kids are made to write a letter to the President on the current state of education in America. Of course the smart girl ends up doing the report and it turns out that the letter actually makes it to the White House and the President decides to let the kids come to Washington so that they can introduce his new education bill. They've got two days to get to Washington and the road trip begins when Red (Tommy Chong), the horse pill popping bus driver shows up and declares the party official. The next two days are full of your typical sex and drugs but when the kids learn that they are just being used for political reasons, they decide to show that they aren't dumb after all.National Lampoon's Senior Trip is without a doubt one of the dumbest, most lame films ever made. Everything from the acting to the directing to the so-called screenplay are amateurish and perhaps that's being a bit too nice. There isn't a single original idea throughout the entire film and most of the time the film tries to go all out with over the top stereotypes as well as silly party scenes leading up to a so-called dramatic ending where the losers become winners. Every single scene in this film is something we've previously seen yet we're fortunate because the film is still pretty damn funny. The term so bad it's good certainly applies to this film.What makes this bad movie work is the effort that is obviously going on throughout it. You can tell that the actors are trying their best to recreate earlier teen films like National Lampoon's Animal House and Porky's but they fail horribly in every sense yet them failing so badly is what gets a laugh from the viewer. We can look at all the stereotypes, which are seen the same way they were back in the 1980's. We've got the fat kid who does nothing in the movie except eat food. We get a dork who loves Playboy magazine yet fails to perform when a sex kitten offers him the time of his life. We get the good-girl virgin who deep down really wants to go wild with sex and alcohol. We got the bad boy who likes her and is willing to be a bit on the good side to get down her pants. We then get the dork teachers pet who deep down is a homosexual.The stereotypes themselves are very politically incorrect, which also adds to some of the charm. There's a hilarious, if stupid, scene where the teacher's pet is asked by the Principle for help and the guy gets down on his knees thinking that's the help needed. We get another scene where the overweight guy goes all out on his fantasy where he would have sex with a real Jap from China. We even get a nice porno take of Forrest Gump called Forrest Humps. If all of this sounds incredibly stupid, well it is and that's what makes the film funny. All of these jokes, as bad as they are, are being acted and directed as if they were the greatest comic lines ever written so we're left laughing at ourselves laughing at the film more than we're actually laughing at what's in the film.The biggest stab in the film goes towards Star Trek fans as one characters is so obsessed with the series that he goes all out (with his rubber sex partner) to destroy one of the senior members. There another politically incorrect scene where the Trek-nut kidnaps a Chinese family, which has to be seen to believe. Then there's the cameo by Tommy Chong, which while funny should have been a whole lot better. Sadly all the promos made it feel that he would have a large chunk in the film but he's in and out way too quickly but before he goes Chong delivers a few good pot jokes as well as a nice homage back to his days with Cheech.National Lampoon's Senior Trip is a very poor film but if you don't mind an offensive and lamebrain film then I'm sure you'll get enough chuckles out of it. You certainly shouldn't go into this thing expecting anything like Animal House and if you do you'll certainly be very disappointed. This is a very poorly made film that thankfully gets bad enough to get a few laughs. When I originally saw this in the theaters I was hoping this would be a return form to the good old days where teen comedies weren't rated PG-13 and didn't have a silly message to relay. There's no message here and the dirtiness certainly deserved the R-rating but by in large, the film is forgotten for a reason and I doubt a cult will ever pick up on it.

aesgaard41 On one level, this is a really horrible movie that tries to make heroes out of slackers, potheads and social rejects, but on another more subliminal level, the kids in this movie are like the largest comedy team ever seen. They're not funny, they're interesting to watch. Jeremy Renner is the ringleader, an under-achiever who has accepted his limitations and blindly corrupts logic to break the rules. He should have been a break out star, but the direction doesn't explore his comedic chops and he is forced to mug, grimace and cow tow to the rest of the cast. The true funny presence to watch is character-actor Kevin MacDonald as the psycho Trekkie with a chip on his shoulder who wants to takeout Renner's character for years of psychological abuse; he's the one to watch here as he goes through abuse after abuse and realizes the things he learned from "Star Trek" don't help him in the real world. Matt Frewer is wasted as an exasperated, harried and frustrated principal stuck in one mode as the kids push him over the end; he's pretty much the kids patsy and victim from one end of the movie to the other. Eric Edwards plays a forced Belushi clone: an sleepy yet vice-driven imbecile without morals, but without any of the charm, humor or presence of John or Jim Belushi. (To see him now, you'd never expect he was the same actor!) Tommy Chong is stuck in the same one-joke cliché role he plays in every movie: a conspiracy-talking pothead who is his own worst enemy. It's a shame he's written off so early; investigating his life would have been more interesting. My favorite character is Carla Morgan played by Tara Charendoff; she oozes sex and kittenishly moves through the movie possessed by Marilyn Monroe showing off the full range of her acting ability. The plot is weak; it runs like a documentary of high school rejects attached to a loose sequence of comedic criminal events and unfunny disasters filled with a huge cast of unknowns. Only Charendoff and Nicole DeBoer would go on to any greater success. It lacks the spirit of "Animal House," the humor of John Landis or the commentary of Harold Ramis, and yet, you wonder what sort of damage these kids could do somewhere else and there, there is the one saving point of this film that you wonder what happens to them next.

noda21 This is a great movie! While it may seem immature at times, this movie is amusing no matter how many times you have seen it. The cast is excellent, especially Jeremy Renner, aka Dags. The students in it will remind you of your high school days. The smart girl, the geeky kid, the burnouts, the fat kid, etc. The plot is an important part but along the way, little things are added. One example is a vindictive crossing guard who thinks he is one of the Star Trek crew members. He follows the bus, trying to get back at one of the kids. He has his blowup doll and his water-gun of a laser. The antics that ensue on this trip are very memorable and I can guarantee you'll have to see it again to catch it all!