Customer Reviews

College Road Trip [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

College Road Trip [Theatrical Release]

College Road Trip is a slap-stick comedy that is a great movie to take your kids to, as long as they are young. The main criticism I have of this movie is about the marketing, since most kids that are college bound are probably too old for this. The jokes are very predictable humor. If your kids are older than 14, they will probably find this style of humor too childish for their tastes. In that way this movie is a missed opportunity for Disney to expand their market to all the older Martin Lawrence and Raven fans.

If you've seen the trailers, you pretty much know the entire story. Dad (Martin Lawrence) takes daughter (Raven) on a road trip to check out colleges. Antics ensue.

Martin's character is a very over-protective police chief who is a bit of a control freak. His daughter has long outgrown being daddy's little girl. He wants her to stay local for college, but she wants to go away.

There's a genius younger brother and a pet pig to add the cute factor. There must be a lot of young geniuses out there because little brothers never have normal intelligence in movies or TV anymore, but I digress. Raven's friends are cliched teenaged valley girls who aren't even from the valley.

Most people who initially may be interested in seeing the movie are either Raven fans or Martin Lawrence fans. Yet this movie was made for an audience of much younger kids.

I am a huge Martin Lawrence fan and I think Raven is very talented and funny. But both of them were under used in this movie. Martin Lawrence is frequenty upstaged by his co-stars, and Raven does a good job but doesn't have the best lines. In fact, Will Sasso, Donny Osmand, his daughter, and the pig are the highlights of this movie. And they don't have enough scenes to make this movie really funny for adults.

Young kids from 5 to 12 or 13 will love the jokes. College bound kids will find themselves wondering why they called this "College Road Trip" when it's clearly designed for kids that aren't even out of grade school.

Overall, this movie is somewhat disappointing. It could have been so much more with the cast that they collected here. If you've got a group of young kids and want to take them to a fun and wholesome Disney movie, this is it. If you're kids are college bound, or even high school sophomores, they probably would rather see something else.

Enjoy!

I enjoyed this movie so much when it was in theaters and I can't wait to see this again.... I laughed so much! It made me feel better after a hard days work. I would even so my parents this because in a way .... THIS TELLS EXTACT how I feel about college and the NEED to GET AWAY from HOME! Donny Osmond was the Best PART, even tough, I like Raven and Martin. I truly think you should consider purchasing this movie... I truly can't wait for a second one with these two families.

This movie stars Raven-Symone and Martin Lawrence, in probably one of the best Family events of the year. Martin's humor, Donny's humor, Raven's great acting, and the pig, make this movie a must-see. It is really a great film, and close to the end, it becomes one of those movies that are cry worthy...

I just loved this movie its the best clean movie in a long time im a big Donny Osmond and Raven Fan so his movie was just what i needed for my collection of dvds .

I definitely love COLLEGE ROAD TRIP.

Despite, it is sort of a Children movie, even though it deals with College, the movie is a great movie for all ages, and families!

Plus Raven-Symoné makes this movie all better!!!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Raven is a doll. Martin is Martin in a G-rated version. I like the way they interact and I am glad to see a movie with a clean-cut black family. I like the fact that there is a Mom and Dad that seem to love each other and their children. This movie can be related to by all families. It gives a person hope that there are still decent people living decent lives.

There's a sequence in "College Road Trip" in which a pig destroys a wedding because it's hopped up on coffee beans. This is soon followed by Raven-Symoné leading a busload of Asian tourists in a rendition of "Double Dutch Bus." Near the end of the film, Symoné and Martin Lawrence become on-the-spot skydivers; they land in a golf course where they just happen to run into the man whose daughter's wedding was destroyed by the pig. I'd like to say that this material is expected of a G rated film, but is it really? It seems more likely that the filmmakers were just grabbing at comedic straws and hoping that something would come of it. I won't say that this movie is bad, because I'm well aware that it's aiming for younger audiences. But it definitely isn't trying very hard; the theme is transitioning into adulthood, but the sense of humor is the kind only young children can appreciate.

The plot: seventeen-year-old Melanie Porter (Symoné) wants to attend Georgetown Universtiy in Washington D.C., but her insanely overprotective father, James (Lawrence), wants her to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern is only a forty-mile drive from their home just outside of Chicago, and as a police chief, he believes that such a short distance will keep his daughter safe. Besides, he had been planning this for her ever since she was born. He's clearly a control freak, which is partly why Melanie wants to go to a far-away college. But there's more to it than that: she wants to study law. Unbeknownst to James, a judge visiting her high school promised to arrange an interview for her at Georgetown. Also unbeknownst to James, Melanie and her friends had planned a road trip that would end up in Washington D.C. When he learns of all this, he decides to take Melanie on his own version of a road trip; hopefully, he can convince her that Northwestern is the best possible choice.

The comedic hijinx begin almost as soon as the trip. At the first stop--Northwestern--Melanie quickly discovers that her father staged an elaborate scheme; tour guides, students, and faculty all tell Melanie that Georgetown is a violent place. One person says that her father is smart and cool. After this fiasco, James' car gets a flat tire in the middle of the woods, and from this we discover that his brainy young son--Trey (Eshaya Draper)--has stowed away, along with his pet pig, Albert (who James doesn't trust; he calls him Houdini Pig). James jacks the car too far up, causing it to roll down a hill and into a ditch. They then stay at a hotel where the abovementioned wedding is being held. They then meet the father/daughter duo of Doug and Wendy Greenhut (Donny Osmond and Molly Ephraim), who are also on a college road trip. They happily drive James and Melanie to a bus station. Actually, "happily" is not a strong enough word here--they take perky to a level I don't care to describe.

Naturally, Melanie and James start reconnecting as the journey continues. But more importantly, James begins to realize that Melanie is no longer his precious little girl; he has to take the steps to let her go so that she can live her own life. Unoriginal, yes, but I think we all know that issues of love and trust play major roles in any such story. We even get the obligatory advice from Melanie's grandmother (Ametia Walker), required by the unspoken laws of family films to understand her granddaughter's frustration. None of that bothered me. What did bother me were scenes that took the comedy to unnecessary heights. Example: after sneaking into a sorority house to spy on Melanie, James is tasered by the sorority mother and arrested. Why did this scene have to be in the movie? Do you think young kids would find that funny? How many young kids actually know what a taser gun is? I suppose it may be more than I think, and that's sad when you stop and think about it.

Moments like that are genuinely bad. Everything else about the film is just mind-numbingly routine, offering nothing new in the way of character, theme, setting, or resolution. The best that can be said is that the actors look like they're having fun. This is especially true of Donny Osmond, who hams it up so thoroughly that it's more or less convincing. Raven-Symoné seems to be in her element, but that isn't saying very much since her resume is largely composed of "That's So Raven."

I think by now you get the point I'm trying to make. Most films like this suffer because the filmmakers don't know how to handle the material; they make them too goofy or too sappy or too crazy, even when the story doesn't call for it. I didn't get that feeling from "College Road Trip"--it seemed like the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing. That's fine, I guess, as long as you don't mind family films that are zany, sickly sweet, and predictable. I can pretty much guarantee that kids will enjoy this film, if not for its message, then for the delight of watching the adult characters do silly things. The pig will also get some laughs out of the little ones. Let's face it--the pig is damn cute. Parents, on the other hand, will get almost nothing from the film, save for a couple of tender moments between Lawrence and Symoné. "College Road Trip" is only as good as it wanted to be, a fancy way of saying it didn't want to be very good at all.

A cute family movie. Of course, hollywood has to protray the parent being over protective when the should be making the parent look like they LOVE their child! Any decent parent is not hopping at the bit to get rid of their kids! Anyway, I think they bring out the best on both sides and make it a bit funny.

No foul language (which is surprising from Martin lawrence) and a good story to top it off. I can recommend it to the whole family.

College Road Trip is my favorite movie in the world. (One of them, at least.) Every child or grown up would probably love it. It's not about the usual "high school." The characters are different. This is a great and unique movie.

Martin a cop plays the role of an over protective dad causing some drama along the way. Everyone seems to be aware of the fact that he is a bit over protective except for him. He is so protective he had his daughters whole life planned out for her before she even came into adult hood and we all know how well that works. With special guest Donnie Osmond singer from the 70's who plays another over the edge dad it gives the right mixture of annoying yet funny in these desperate last years of child hood for the two daughters. Good movie over all.