Accepted

Stars: Justin Long, Blake Lively, Jonah Hill, Adam Herschman

Director: Steve Pink

An utterly preposterous teen comedy about a handful of students who, rejected by every college for further education, decide to invent their own.

They take over a derelict psychiatric hospital and instal themselves there. What they don't bargain for is that their fake website (invented to fool suspicious parents) will attract hundreds more misfits like themselves.

This is quite a fun premise, but its basic absurdity isn't eased by the writers' idea to have just one drunken ex-professor to 'lecture' the students, who study such 'subjects' as skateboarding and slacking. This might work in a Marx Brothers comedy, but here a grounding of reality is sorely needed.

After all, with $10,000 tuition fee cheques pouring in, our teenage anti-heroes are surely in a position to hire people at least to pose as teachers, if not to actually hold classes.

Justin Long is the resourceful rejectee who starts it all, and Blake Lively a promising personality as the dishy blonde he fancies, who transfers from her snobby college to enlist in his 'South Harmon Institute of Technology' (yes, its faculty members are called S.H.I.T.Heads).

A late-night movie for the easily pleased.

David Quinlan

USA 2006. UK Distributor: UIP (Paramount/Universal). Technicolor.
93 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 30 Sep 2006