Jon Lucas

’21 & Over’ – Crap from the Past and from the Writers of ‘The Hangover’

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

Honestly, I did not laugh once during “21 and Over.” Maybe I chuckled a bit at one or two scenes, but that really doesn’t qualify as a laugh. This film is essentially a rip-off of “The Hangover” with elements of “Superbad” thrown in for good measure. It aspires to be a classic comedy like those films and even “Animal House” and “Adventures in Babysitting” among others, but it does not come even close to their hilarity or greatness. Regardless of the strong comic energy put forth by the cast here, this film is a complete waste of time and is honestly, at times, quite offensive.

Lifelong friends Miller (Miles Teller) and Casey (Skylar Astin) are in town to pick up their friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) and take him out for the time of his life. Yes, the main reason for this is that his twenty-first birthday has arrived, and they are not about to let him celebrate it alone. But wouldn’t you know it, he has a very important medical school interview the following morning, and his dad, who is played by François Chau (yes, Shredder from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movies), is deadly serious about his son living up to the family name. Regardless, Miller and Casey are determined to take him out to celebrate, and Jeff agrees to go out as long as he is restricted to only one drink.

But of course, this would not be a motion picture without disaster courting these characters. Realizing he can now go to all these college bars he was once denied entrance to, Jeff goes insane and drinks every single bit of alcohol he can get his hands on at all of them. Things come to a gross climax when he rides a mechanical bull similar to one at the Saddle Ranch Chop House off of Sunset Boulevard, and it is very unsurprising when he vomits all over the place. The filmmakers go out of their way to show this character vomiting in slow motion, but it proves to be far more disgusting than it is amusing. Heck, Linda Blair vomiting pea soup at Jason Miller in “The Exorcist” was far more amusing than this, and that was a horror movie!

From there, Miller and Casey have to get Jeff home and ready for his big interview, but they soon discover they do not remember his address. Never mind how they were there earlier in the day; these douchebags do not even have Jeff’s address on them! Great, wonderful. So, from there, these three go through a lot of crazy adventures as Miller and Casey try to get Jeff’s address from different people, and you know they are not going to get the answer they are looking for until it is almost too late to do so.

Everything in “21 and Over” feels so very recycled from all those comedies we loved watching growing up. When Miller and Casey end up breaking into a female Latino sorority, in the process of trying to get Jeff’s address, they get two girls to make out with each other just because they can. Then there is a character who mistakes a tampon for a candy bar, an obnoxious jock looking to beat up anybody just because he can, and we of course get an obligatory scene of Miller and Casey being forced to make out with one another. That particular scene has been done to death in just about every Adam Sandler comedy ever made as well as “American Pie “2, and the fact the filmmakers still use this device is just tiresome because the audience’s reaction to it says more about them than anyone else.

Our main characters are also forced to go nude in several scenes with nothing but a tube sock or a teddy bear to cover their privates. Now I have seen far too many comedies to find this bit the least bit amusing anymore. Besides the Red Hot Chili Peppers did this same gag to greater effect years ago when these actors we see here were just babies. By the time this came up, I was very ready to leave the theater because the odds of anything original happening after this felt completely moot.

Furthermore, these characters end up saying some of the most asinine dialogue I have heard any character say in a long time. While it may be designed to make them sound hip and cool, they instead come across as homophobic and borderline racist. Miller, in particular, keeps making statements about different races and nationalities which need to be heard to be believed. I think the writers wanted Miller to be like Zach Galifianakis’ character from “The Hangover,” but while the latter was so funny because he never fully understood what was coming out of his mouth, Miller is clearly someone who should know better about what he is saying.

There is even another scene where Casey, while making small talk with the lovely coed Nicole (Sarah Wright), explains why he isn’t interested in joining a fraternity. Now I’m not going to repeat exactly what Casey said, but I can say that the audience I saw it with reacted in shock to what they heard. If it was intended to be funny, it failed miserably.

“21 and Over” marks the directorial debut of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore who, coincidentally, are the same two people who wrote the screenplay for “The Hangover.” They have said that “21 and Over” is not meant to be a copy of “The Hangover,” but I that they are just fooling themselves. This movie more or less has the same setup, and the only real difference is that none of the characters are trying to figure out what they did the night before because they know all the gory details which led them to where they are at. While Lucas and Moore are nice guys, they cannot hide how there is nothing here to set this movie apart from so many other comedies which came before it.

Still, I do have to give the actors some credit. While they are stuck with a script which clearly needed more work, they throw themselves into their performances with sheer comic abandon. Teller, whom we have gotten to know very well from the “Footloose” remake, “Whiplash” and “Top Gun: Maverick” does not is hold anything back as Miller, and he is a very talented actor. Astin, whom you might remember from “Pitch Perfect,” does have a very charming quality about him. Then there is Chon who managed to free himself from all those “Twilight” movies before this one, and he does pull off making Jeff look believably drunk. But in the end, their efforts do not matter much because this motion picture still sucks to an infinite degree.

When I turned 21 years old, my birthday celebration was nothing like the one portrayed here. In retrospect, I am thankful for that as what everyone goes through in “21 and Over” is more horrific than funny. There are few things more depressing in life than a comedy which does not make you laugh, and this is one of them.

½* out of * * * *

WRITER’S NOTE: Back in 2013 when “21 and Over” was released, the website VeryAware.com, in an article written by Courtney Howard, said there will be a very different version of it shown in China. It turns out Chinese companies put a lot of money into the making of this film and, as a result, it is being re-cut for their more conservative audiences. What they will end up seeing is a movie about how Jeff Chang leaves China to study in the United States and ends up being corrupted by “Western partying ways.” Apparently, it starts with Jeff at a Chinese college, and scenes for the movie were shot in the city of Linyi, Shandong province to reflect this. It will end with Jeff returning to China and realizing that his time in the U.S. was just a bad idea.

Will we ever get to see this version in America? Odds are it will be far more interesting than what we got here.

Skylar Astin on Being the Moral Compass in ’21 & Over’

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

WRITER’S NOTE: This interview took place back in 2013.

Skylar Astin has had the privilege of entertaining us onstage in the Tony Award-winning musical “Spring Awakening” and onscreen in movies like “Hamlet 2” where he sang the song “Raped in the Face” and “Pitch Perfect” in which he appeared opposite Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. Now he’s starring in “21 and Over,” the comedy which marks the directorial debut of “The Hangover” screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Astin plays Casey who quickly proves to be the moral compass the other main characters need to survive the mess they end up getting caught in.

I got to catch up with Astin while at the “21 and Over” press conference held at the Saddle Ranch Chop House off of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Now when it comes to college comedies like this one, most actors would prefer to play the character who is wild and crazy and comes across as the life of the party. Casey, however, is exactly the opposite of that even though he gets into as much trouble as his friends do. Still, Astin saw the benefits of playing such a level headed and grounded character in this film.

Skylar Astin: “You’ve got to have a moral compass of the movie and you got to like steer the ship a little. It’s cool that we all got our opportunity to be funny though.”

One pivotal scene in “21 and Over” has Astin and his co-star Miles Teller walking around campus wearing nothing but a tube sock over their privates. Now this could not have been a very comfortable scene to do, especially when you have a lot of people on set looking at you and wondering how much time you spent at the gym. Astin talked in detail about he approached this scene in the film which was filmed in Seattle, Washington.

Skylar Astin: “Funny enough, it was supposed to be approached very delicately. We were told that it was going to be a closed set and that it was gonna be the warmest day of the shoot. It turns out that it’s freezing, everyone’s there, and actually at our first costume fitting they just had a sock and a little underneath sock to keep everything in place and they’re like ‘here’s your fitting!’ At first, we had a moment of where it was like fight or flight, and I think I was just like ‘let’s just do it man. We have to do it eventually.’ I just de-robed and was like this is everything I got. I don’t think I was like proud, but I just had to play the role of being okay with it. I had the idea of making the whole crew where just socks and they didn’t oblige, especially the women, but it worked out thankfully.”

In the film, Astin and Teller take their best friend from high school, Jeff Chang (played by Justin Chon), to celebrate his 21st birthday in an appropriately drunken style. Now the really good actors are able to draw on their own experiences when playing the role, and we couldn’t help but wonder if Astin has been through similar nights in his own life. It was actually a bit surprising to hear the similarities he shares with Casey.

Skylar Astin: “Personally for me, my younger brother is my best friend and my partner in crime and I’ve definitely had several nights that had the spirit of this movie. I’ve always been the one that has a good time, but at the end of the bender it’s like ‘both of our phones are dead and we both have to call our parents and tell them we’re alive.’ That’s kind of always been my responsibility so I can relate to the feeling of just being a little irritable on those nights but also letting loose and have a good time. There is a little bit of Casey in me, but I don’t think I’m as much of an over thinker though. I always try to draw from personal experiences and my own personality whenever I play a role, and it’s not hard to play a role that close to my age, close to home and in a movie that I would go see if I wasn’t in it.”

Working with two different directors on the same film must seem challenging as this is typically a one-person job. What if one director tells you to do one thing and the other director instructs you to do the exact opposite? Where do you draw the line? Astin, however, said both Lucas and Moore were on the same page as they had written the screenplay together and have been friends for many years. As a result, there was never any conflict between either of them.

Skylar Astin: “What they have in common is that they are both the writers so it comes directly from one vessel. That’s always really great as an actor to have that wealth of knowledge coming from two voices. For me, I loved the different kinds of conversations that I would have with each one. Since I had a love story on top of the funny moments, there were different kind of conversations like the leading man type of thing I would have with Moore and to be more sincere in certain moments, and then Lucas was great because he was giving me jokes every five minutes. So, I had this well-rounded voice coming from two different people. They worked together so well, and they almost know this age better than I do and I’m closer to it. It’s kind of crazy.”

For a film filled with such drunken debauchery as “21 and Over,” Skylar Astin proves to be the most well-rounded person these characters need to get them through the night. It is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.