Although Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball) is an amiable young actor, he can't save this ersatz campus comedy, which wants to be the new Animal House but is closer in spirit to PCU. Here's the premise: when a high school senior (Long) fails to get into college, he invents a fictitious institution—website and all—which he pretends has admitted him. To pull the con off, however, he has to create a physical campus his family can actually visit, so he and his pals renovate a deserted hospital and hire a sharp-tongued ex-academic to play its dean. Things become complicated when hundreds of kids waving $10,000 tuition checks show up for classes, having enrolled via the website, spurring our hero to run the place as a campus where students teach each other in unorthodox, self-constructed courses, much to the chagrin of the dean of a prestigious real college down the road. This could be the springboard for some sharp satire, but director Steve Pink's Accepted opts for the most obvious sort of goofball farce, leavened with cheap sentiment, David-vs.-Goliath triumphalism, and a pronounced string of scatological gags based on the acronym of the phony college's name (the South Harmon Institute of Technology). Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include an audio commentary (by director Steve Pink and costars Justin Long, Lewis Black, Jonah Hill, and Adam Herschman), 13 minutes of deleted scenes, an 11-minute “Adam's Accepted Chronicles” featurette on Herschman, a 10-minute “Reject Rejection” making-of featurette, an eight-minute gag reel, an interactive “Self-Guided Campus Tour” of five “campus” locations (6 min.), a “Hangin' on the Half-Pipe” skateboarding montage sequence, the music video “Keepin' Your Head Up” by The Ringers, DVD-ROM features (including MP3 music files), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a lame comedy.] (F. Swietek)
Accepted
Universal, 93 min., PG-13, DVD: $29.99, Nov. 14 Volume 21, Issue 5
Accepted
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