Sex Drive

This new addition to the teen sex comedy genre packs a few pretty good laughs, but ultimately brings little or nothing new to the table.
Ian is kind of a dork, he has a couple close friends and a longing for a girls privates. He has an online chat partner where he is posing as a jock jackass with “Ms. Tasty” online, talking about random perverted things throughout the night. When not handing out Doughnut coupons in a Mexican ethnic Doughnut suits, Ian is hanging out with his two best friends, Felicia and Lance. Felicia is the cute friend that Ian probably wants to hook up with, but instead acts as the shoulder to cry on when she is not “twat blocking” him from hooking up with other girls. Lance is a suave, smooth talking, womanizer that is Ian’s motivator to get laid. They both act as the Devil (Lance) and Angel (Felicia) to his ears as they encourage how he should treat women along the course of the film. Either way, they all end up on a road trip to Knoxville to meet Ms. Tasty as she convinces Ian to come down there with a promise of going “all the way,” and as you would expect many hi jinks ensue, the first being stealing Ian’s brother Rex’s prized car, ‘The Judge’.
If you are starting to go, this sounds very familiar, it’s because it is. The film borrows heavily from a lot of the films in the genre before hand, but it adds enough freshness to the proceedings to keep you entertained, not to mention a few flat our hilarious scenes. Though the film opens with a blatant rip off of the opening to American Pie, the jerk brother from Weird Science, the road trip to score but the best thing is right next to you from The Sure Thing, road kill execution from Me, Myself, and Irene, and I could go on and on. But some how, the film does manage to keep you laughing, and while it might be borrowing, it takes, or at least tries to take, a new spin on an old bit; though not always successful. The way they try to spin the three leads as a love triangle, just fail miserably and are totally unbelievable. And, we can’t forget to mention the odd and out of place Amish Rumspringa plot of the film, just odd. If you are interested in young pretty girls and nudity, this has that as well, so if you’re into that, at least you will have that going for you too.
Now, lets take a look at the actors, most of which you won’t recognize. James Marsden is the biggest star here as Rex, Ian’s older brother, and he does a fine job of being a douche bag meat head that cause hell for his little brother. Marsden does a good job at making the character dim and offensive and nails the prescribed part for the genre. Clark Duke is the only other face many of you guys will probably recognize, as he has popped up in a couple of Michael Cera movies as they are buds, and he plays the role of Lance. Now, when I described Lance earlier, you probably weren’t expecting the guy to look like Clark Duke. He is kind of pudgy, wears glasses, kind of covering a receded hair line, and looks kind of like a loser if you saw him on the street, not the suave hunk you would expect. But the casting works once you get past the looks as he can definitely talk the talk and drops plenty of funny one liners and smoothness along the way. So while he might not fit the stereotype, the filmmaker’s kind of turn the part on its head a little bit and they get a decent payoff with Duke in the end. Josh Zuckerman plays Ian and he plays the awkward, dorky, virgin well here, but he doesn’t do it as well as Emilie Hirsch and Jason Biggs have in the best of the recent sex comedies. Amanda Crew stars as Felicia the female lead, and she does a good job of being cute and endearing but not a prude at the same time. Unfortunately, she has to work through the brunt of the triangle romance mess as most of it revolves around her decisions, and it kind of holds her back a bit, but other wise, she does a decent enough job.
In the end, Sex Drive is a decent, unoriginal, comedy that makes the most out of putting some new spins on old bits and gags. The film has a couple of really funny scenes, and keeps you laughing most of the time throughout. The flick was a tad long, but the finale is hilarious, they just took a bit too long to get there. If you’re a fan of the genre Sex Drive is decent effort worth picking up on video down the line, but don’t be rushing out to see it in theaters, as there are plenty of other more worthy films you should be checking out in the first place.
6.5/10