Project X

Fire and brimstone...hmm, I wonder where that came from.

 

Grade: C –

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown and Kirby Bliss Blanton

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 28 min.

The raucous oeuvre of producer Todd Phillips (Old School; The Hangover) hovers throughout Project X, a mash-up of the hormonal audacity in Superbad and the faux-amateur video conceit of Cloverfield. The result is a house party flick in which the teenage participants wreak more havoc to a suburban East Pasadena mock-up than a monster maundering through Manhattan.

For his 17^th birthday, high school nebbish Thomas (Thomas Mann) throws a pool party at his house his two friends, Jonah Hill-lookalike JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown) and Costa (Oliver Cooper), a New Jersey transplant and the constant devil on Thomas’ shoulder. With Thomas’ parents (predictably) out of town and the number of inebriated and increasingly libidinous partygoers metastasizing into the hundreds, mayhem ensues that’s ultra-bawdy before climaxing as hyper-ludicrous.

The entire spectacle is a profane, decadent John Hughes pampliset holding minor significance as an anarchical tome on contemporary restless youth. Otherwise, it’s a routine, albeit frenetic plot about boys chasing girls and the innate drive to be the cool kids in school. Teen viewers may get some bad ideas; their parents will never leave them home alone again.

Neil Morris