Oh, what a delightful movie "Orange County" is, with its wonderful brand of situational humor and use of Hollywood's underrated actors who bring out the best in the material. One could almost call this film the anti-"American Pie," considering the PG-13 rating and its somewhat toned down brand of comedy, but it's just as humorous as that previous winner, and comes out as a terrific exercise in non-stop laughs.

The story takes place in Orange County, California, where high school senior Shaun Brumder (newcomer Colin Hanks) spends his days cutting class to go surfing with his three best friends. As his story goes, his friend's drowning death while surfing in a tropical storm leads him to change his goals; after finding a popular book on the beach and reading it 52 times in a single month, he makes the decision of becoming a good writer, something he feels he cannot achieve while living where he does.

And who could blame him? His mother, Cindy (Catherine O'Hara), spends her days living in a drunken stupor, the product of a marriage for material wealth who wants nothing more than for Shaun to remain at home. Her husband is an elderly man who requires a wheelchair and a daily dose of various medications to keep him docile, while Shaun's brother Lance (Jack Black) is a connoisseur of illegal substances. His father (John Lithgow), who divorced his mother for a 20-year-old toothpick, is appalled by his son's future plans.

This leaves him one option: going to college out of town, and so he applies to Stanford, a school he yearns for with every fiber of his being. After he is rejected through a comedic series of mishaps and misunderstandings, he becomes desperate, and so he, his girlfriend Ashley (Schuyler Fisk), and Lance drive out to Stanford to set things straight.

What will follow in the second half of the film is a very funny sequence of events that are refreshingly humorous and sometimes meaningful. Such scenes as the dinner at which Shaun attempts to impress a prestigious Stanford couple (played with great gusto by Garry Marshall and Dana Ivey), and that involving the Dean of Admissions and a bottle of Lance's "pain killers," are nothing short of side-splitting, some of the funniest moments in a movie in quite some time. Those looking for something in the vein of the recent outpouring of gross-out flicks will be disappointed in "Orange County's" reluctance to go over the edge, but it does succeed in tickling one's funny bone.

The best aspect of this film is its shining cast, which includes the best work of some untapped resources that have been missing in action for years. O'Hara and Lithgow turn in quirky, delightful performances as Shaun's parents, while newcomer Hanks makes his mark on Hollywood as teenage boy surrounded by insanity. Jack Black practically steals the show as Lance, taking a turn from his character's in last year's "Shallow Hal" by portraying one of the most detestable human beings in a most enlightening manner. And look out for cameos from Lily Tomlin as a disgruntled guidance counselor, Chevy Chase as a pop culture principal, and Kevin Kline as a prestigious yet down-to-earth writer.

Without revealing too much about the film, I will say that Shaun's second change of heart that comes at the movie's ending may be too sentimental for a movie of such comedic potential, but it doesn't cheat by the rules of the teen movie, and is perfectly acceptable. As for the comedy, it doesn't push the envelope, and that's a good thing. "Orange County" is the first truly great comedy of the year, and after last year's hoard of flops, this one adds a glimmer of hope for 2002.

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