Accepted
Studio: Universal Pictures Distribution
Rated: PG-13
Cast: Justin Long, Blake Lively, Lewis Black, Adam Herschman, Jonah Hill
Director: Steve Pink
WorkNameSort: Accepted
Our Rating: 3.00
Whaddaya know, but director Steve Pink and his crew of crazy coeds have come up with half of a pretty decent movie here. The premise of Accepted ‘ high-school losers who couldn’t get into a respectable college invent one for themselves instead ‘ yields a surprising amount of legitimately gleeful anarchy, especially whenever pudgeball tagalong Sherman (a very funny Jonah Hill) takes time out to remind his friends how asinine the whole idea is. Long on winning attitude but not what you’d call consistent, the movie will do simply anything for a laugh, including attempting to wring too much mileage out of the school’s moniker, the South Harmon Institute of Technology (SHIT, geddit?). But if the aggregate entertainment level doesn’t exactly equal the benchmarks set by Animal House, Back to School, How I Got Into College or even Revenge of the Nerds, then it’s only fitting that the relaxed standards of today’s college movies mirror the decline of American education itself.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2006.