Scotty Thomas (Scott Mechlowics) is your average teenage high school graduate; he has a pretty girlfriend and a bright future at college studying medicine to follow his father’s footsteps. Things turn sour when his girlfriend dumps him on graduation day and worse when he learns of her infidelity with the lead singer of a punk band (Matt Damon in an uncharacteristic cameo) at graduation party that night.

Broken hearted he turns to his long time German pen pal Mieke (Jessica Boehrs) a hot German female student who he actually thinks is a guy. Scott mistakes Mieke’s last email to him as a sick come-on from an internet predator and he tells her (him) to never contact him again. After figuring out that Mieke is actually a girl he is convinced by his friend Cooper (Jason Pitts) to break out of his “predictable Scotty� persona and meet up with Mieke in Berlin.

David Hasslehoff saves the day, again.

What follows is a series of slapstick and typically teenage events in various European cities which exploit and perpetuate the stereotypes for each country; not necessarily a bad thing. Beginning with football hooligans in London, featuring Vinnie Jones, then to Paris where they are confronted with the rude French, nude beach antics in Cran Sur Mer to an S&M adventure in Amsterdam, finally ending up in Bratislav in Eastern Europe where the exchange rate gets them a night in a high class hotel and all the trimmings for US$1.87.

Eurotrip is overflowing with over the top European and even American stereotypes and it’s all done in good fun without a hint of malice. Continuing the trend, some of the characters are cookie cutter Hollywood archetypes but the young and generally unknown actors make a decent show, the cameo appearances from Matt Damon and Lucy Lawless are also well worth a watch.

I like metal ice-cream, makes my tongue all tingly.

The packaging slick claims that Eurotrip is brought to us by the same producers as Road Trip and Old School, which is technically correct. It is obvious from the extras package that the brains behind this particular incarnation of the teenage road trip sex romp is the trio of Berg, Mandel and Shaffer who get the writing and directing credits for Eurotrip. But since nobody knows who these guys are (maybe one day) Producer Daniel Goldberg who’s credits also include Stripes and Meatballs and a bunch of lame reality TV, gets all the glory.

Ahoy hoy hoy, I can see right through your ears Vinnie.

Eurotrip is presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is enhanced for widescreen displays. As with all DVD’s the first thing you see if the menu system with is features a European theme and some shorts from the movie being played in a continual loop, the menus are simple and easy to navigate.

The video transfer for Eurotrip is generally excellent but some problems are evident. The black levels during the early night time settings are way too dark and the details on shadowed areas is non existent, however this does improve as the film progresses. The only other major issue was a certain level of grain in some high contrast scenes, for example a dark room viewing into a well lit room, giving the picture a soft look but again this is only limited to a few scenes.

Memories of International Karate on the C64.

Colour saturation is good and gives a realistic look to both solid colours and skin tones, particularly important in the uncut version of this movie, if you know what I mean.

The audio package is equally above average with a Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 options as well as a 2.0 audio commentary. The 5.1 mix is generally very good with the surrounds being used mainly for rare effects and environmental effects like traffic and background noise. The centre channel is clear and audible at all times making listening to the dialogue effortless.

There are 3 subtitle tracks on this DVD, English, English for the Hearing Impaired and as is becoming the trend more and more, a subtitle track for the director/writers commentary.

The extras package for Eurotrip is pretty impressive and includes a mix of interesting and unique features.

Party Along Commentary track featuring Writers Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Shaffer

A “Party Along� is a new and radical concept in audio commentaries where the participants use the movie as a drinking game and drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of pizza and gradually become less and less focused and comprehendible even to the point of one of the guys phoning his girlfriend to come pick him up because he’s now too drunk to drive. As bad as this sounds it actually works and I encourage all directors and actors to get drunk during their commentaries in the future, it certainly couldn’t hurt some of those dull and dry overly technical blahfests of the past.

Gag Reel (5:28)
A little promotional in nature with a soundtrack, this gag reel is a collection of fluffed lines, goofs, bloopers and on-set antics. Hosted by the very bizarre and scary Green Absinth Fairy the quality of the video and audio is adequate but is not 16:9 enhanced.

Deleted Scenes (17:56)
Since this edition of the movie is promoted as “un-cut� it’s surprising that the 88 minute run time had nearly 20 more minutes excluded. Most of the 13 scenes presented here are not even re-shoots of existing scenes but mostly extension of or completely new scenes not shown in the main feature.

Alternate Ending (2:43)
Just as you would expect, a completely different ending to the movie. Personally I prefer the one they ended up using.

Nude Beach Exposed (6:14)
The nude beach scene is a sausagefest (yes, that’s a word), if you count the number of penis’s on this beach it would outnumber the breasts shown in the movie, which makes Eurotrip a P&A movie, doesn’t it? Have I given this way too much thought?

But, but, but, but I want to go swimming.

How to pick a Director (1:33)
The directors guild or some such overbearing organisation wont let movies have more than one director so the writing team had to decide on who would get directorial credit even though all three share the role in reality. This short documentary shows us the in depth process that was followed to decide on the proper candidate. I wont spoil the ending.

Eurotrip Bootleg (3:39)
The writers feature again in this extra as they give us a special showing of the bootleg of the movie which appeared three months before the release of the official DVD. In a risky move they actually show the beginning of the movie in all it’s bootlegged glory, complete with a critique of the bootleggers filming technique, original, funny and worth a watch.

The Music of Eurotrip
This extra feature includes two versions of the Matt Damon cameo and the “Scotty doesn’t know� song from the movie. The first is a sing-a-long with lyrics and a bouncing ball and the second is just the video clip with no lyrics, the song is very catchy and will be stuck in your head for days after viewing the movie, poor Scotty.

Photo Gallery
27 still pictures from the movie and behind the scenes, featuring some nudity.

Overall if you are the target audience for Eurotrip it will be an enjoyable no-brainer in the same vein as others in the genre but with some original ideas and a light and fun feel, a perfect popcorn and friends movie with an excellent DVD presentation.