College-geared movies typically follow two rules: Alcohol can make any situation more entertaining and nudity will put a smile on even the most sober dude's face.
The guys at Broken Lizard, who are best known for "Super Troopers," decided to capitalize on these concepts.
"Beerfest" cuts the fat from the genre by creating an entire movie about drinking, with the appearance of about 10 pairs of breasts to keep the half-bored guy in the middle row's attention.
The plot of "Beerfest," or what can be considered a plot, has two brothers out to defend their family name. After an incident during Germany's Oktoberfest, at the top-secret Beerfest, the brothers challenged the leading German team to a drinking contest and lost.
Determined to show them up next year, they enlist the help of three friends and train for a year in preparation for the big showdown.
The sad truth is that even being drunk loses its charm after a while. What made Will Ferrell's drunken streaking so memorable in "Old School" was the fact that it only happened once.
Much like excessive drinking, repeated exposure to the same brand of humor builds up one's tolerance.
There are a lot of funny parts in "Beerfest," don't get me wrong, but they don't add up to an entertaining whole.
One fairly constant source of comedy is man-whore Barry (Jay Chandrasekhar), but for every hilarious beer-goggled hookup there are twice as many moments where the jokes fall flat.
"Beerfest" also suffers from having the all-too-familiar material found in many recent R-rated comedies, while lacking characters people can really care about.
The movie has sexually suggestive material with the elderly (see: "Road Trip," "Grandma's Boy"), ingestion of animal fluids (see: "Van Wilder") and foreigners with accents considered funny to Americans (see: any teen movie).
However, "Beerfest" could have been a lot worse and may actually appear funnier if one variable is tweaked; namely the viewer's sobriety.
If a friend asks you to see it with them, consider throwing back a few shots beforehand. After all, alcohol can make any situation more entertaining, right?
2.5 pitchforks out of 5 when sober, 3 pitchforks out of 5 when drunk
Mike Chichester can be reached at Michael.Chichester@asu.edu.
