The Real Cancun

Venturing into the R-rated territory they always aspired to anyway, the creators of MTV's reality soap The Real World took 16 largely interchangeable, generically attractive, shameless and shallow spring breakers to Cancun, put them up in a fancy beachfront resort, and filmed them getting drunk, having sex, and flexing their egos (or getting them pummeled). The result is this incongruously edited, transparently rushed (in an attempt to beat a similar project to theaters), slapped-together mishmash of superficial frivolity from which few people emerge with their dignity intact--although most are too oblivious to realize it. The focus falls mainly on girls willing to doff their tops, two arrogant lotharios (one takes a cast mate to bed then never speaks to her again) and one harmless, dorky, sexually frustrated 19-year-old nice guy. The flick's spring break atmosphere provides some vicarious guilty pleasure, but these "characters" are mostly the kind of worthless, vacant "actors" who aren't good for anything but reality programming. Rushed to video in record time after swiftly tanking at the box office, this is not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include an “All Access Pass” with a 28-minute “Cast Insights” featurette with comments by 12 cast members, six deleted scenes (12 min.), 11 minutes of highlights from the film's theatrical premiere, a trailer, TV spots and DVD-ROM features. Bottom line: who cares?] (R. Blackwelder)