Critic's Grade: F

Like so many movies that have come and gone before it, "Eurotrip" suffers from perhaps that most fatal of common errors: it gives away too many of its sizeable assets in its promotional campaign. Not that there was much to laugh at in the endlessly boring trailer, but I was kind of hoping that this time the filmmakers had saved the good stuff for those willing to shell out their money. Not so, of course. The stupidity begins when recent high school graduate Scott (Scott Mechlowicz) gets dumped by his girlfriend, after which he does what any calm, rational teenager would do: takes a trip to Europe to meet a female penpal from Germany, whom he feels he has a connection with. Along for the ride is his longtime friend, Cooper (Jacob Pitts), who wants to find out if Europeans are more sexually adventurous; they later meet up with chums (and twins) Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Wester), who get so drunk off of absinthe that in one scene, they end up making out with one another in gross detail.

That and a lot of other things happen in Jeff Schaffer's extremely lacking movie, which does nothing more than add yet another nail into the coffin of the teen comedy genre. Stupid at heart and with nothing on the brain but lots of nudity (female and male) and gross-outs, there's simply nothing new here to distinguish this from any of the countless wanna-bes that have preceded it. The filmmakers also make the fatal mistake of losing touch with their characters: in order for us to laugh at their hijinks, we must first love them as people, and here, we have no point of entry. I laughed not once, nor did I chuckle; in fact, the only amusement I found in the entire film was when I stood up to leave. The tagline for "Eurotrip" reads, "No actual Europeans were harmed in the making of this film." That's a comforting afterthought, considering how bruised and broken my brain was as I fled the theater.

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