BUCKLE UP FOR another wacky roadtrip movie—this time with random acts of gay-bashing and Amish folk! From the beginning, Sex Drives acknowledges its own dirty mind. After a particularly potent wet dream, virgin doofus Ian (Josh Zuckerman) tosses his soaked briefs on his bedroom floor. But then his family barges in with an announcement that ends with his stepmother slipping on the soiled undies.
But this jizz-related accident isn’t entirely Ian’s fault! He fell asleep after yet another hot and heavy online flirtation with Ms.Tasty, tossing in little white lies like owning a car that actually belongs to his lughead brother Rex. Then Ms.Tasty informs him over IM that if he drives from Chicago to meet her in Knoxville, she’ll go all the way with him. Naturally, this is too much for a teenager to pass up. Egged on by his horndog best friend Lance (Clark Duke) and alterna gal pal Felicia (Amanda Crew) in tow, Ian sets out on a 500-mile journey that he assumes will lead to the loss of his virginity, but of course leads to him learning Life Lessons and a not-verysurprising climax of the non-sexual variety.
Maybe Sex Drive wouldn’t be such a slobbering excuse for a comedy if anyone involved had shown one iota of originality. Unfortunately, most of the plot seems to have been ransacked from better teen entertainment—save Seth Green’s turn as a surly
Amish man. Ian’s theft of Rex’s car is straight out of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, while Lance—wrapped in ascots and employing the time-tested method of being an asshole to bed girls—seems like a pale imitation of Gossip Girl’s resident bad boy, Chuck Bass. And then there’s Ian’s brother Rex (a wasted James Marsden). Fond of asking if his brother’s a pole-smoker, Rex is needlessly and relentlessly homophobic. After almost two hours of his gay bashing, we’re finally told that it’s OK that he talks trash about being gay because he, in fact (wait for it), is gay.This sudden revelation is supposedly enough to give him a pass on all his gay slurs. Frankly, it’s too little, too late. Of course, if Rex had even a remotely funny line about Ian’s sexuality, the point would have been moot. But Sex Drive is the kind of movie that milks non-existent laughs out of a license plate that reads “NoFatChx.”
For anyone who likes their humor on the sophomoric side, Sex Drive will no doubt scratch that itch. But for anyone who enjoys jokes that weren’t actually cracked during their high school days, try something else. Anything else.
> Sex Drive
Directed by Sean Anders Running Time: 109 min.
