What can I say about Accepted that would make it different from Animal House, Old School, PCU , Revenge of the Nerds and Van Wilder? Not much. All of the old clichés are still intact in this one with a dash or two of Ghostbusters and any Vince Vaughn comedy. There are some good laughs especially for Jonah Hill who plays Schrader. I definitely could relate to Bartleby Gaines dilemma about the difficulty of getting into college. I applied everywhere myself and struggled just to get into the university of my choice. There are so many rules with regard to higher education that it is a wonder sometimes how someone can get an education at all much less learn something that they are passionate about.
Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) can't get into college so in order to appease his parents he and his cohorts, Hands, (Columbus Short) Schrader (Jonah Hill) and Rory (Maria Thayer) decide to take matters in their own hands and create a fake university, S.H.I.T (South Harmon Institute of Technology). Things get out of hand when the general public believes the university is real and kids start to enroll.
Justin Long is adequate as the lead, although he does plagiarize Vince Vaughn to a tee. Schrader steals the show with his sarcastic wit and general nerdiness. When the kids decide to construct their school in a dilapidated former Psychiatric Hospital Schrader comments as they enter the shabby lobby, "I hope you have your Hobo stab insurance." They of course go through the rigmarole of whether or not they want to keep the scam going, and of course they do. They create classes where students do nothing at all except watch hot chicks in the pool, while others take classes in skateboarding. I will say that they did avoid the typical gross out pranks that defined many films in this genre. No revenge against the Alpha Betas or anything like that, although they do a few scenes for rush week, involving Schrader that are pretty damn funny. There is of course the girl that our hero wants, played amicably by the very attractive Blake Lively. I only wish that they gave a little more time to the crazy dean played by comedian Lewis Black. He's hilarious and if you listen carefully he gives out a few nuggets of common sense regarding the state of education in this country. Overall it's funny and forgettable and fits snuggly into the lexicon of College movies.
Grade: 3 Buckets
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