User reviews

Invited to meet the President of the United States, a group of high school seniors try to make the bus trip as exciting as possible, much to the anguish of their easily irate principal, in this lively comedy starring Jeremy Renner long before his Oscar nomination for 'The Hurt Locker'. The film is weighed down by heavily stereotyped characters (geek, slob, smart girl, prissy young teacher, etc) and at least a third of the gags backfire, but the ones that work are very, very funny thanks to great comic timing from all concerned. Matt Frewer is particularly energetic as the stuffy principal and Lawrence Dane is perfectly vile as a corrupt senator, while Tommy Chong is a lot of fun playing pretty much himself as the bus driver. There is also a wonderfully uncanny subplot involving a 'Star Trek' fanatic who believes that he has a mission to stop the bus arriving at its destination. The film additionally features two hilarious fake movies: one, a 1950s style film about contraception; the other, a pornographic version of 'Forrest Gump'! Oddly enough, the film does not really offer any real ideas regarding the future of education given that the students are traveling to Washington to discuss such matters, but this is a bubbly comedy first and foremost and an enjoyable one at that with Frewer even nicely learning how to bond with his students along the way.

National Lampoon's movies always have layers of comedy. There's the surface level gags like fart jokes and people falling over but underneath that there's always much more going on. It's always worth a second or third watch so you can pay less attention to the in-your-face jokes and more attention to what's going on in the background. Senior Trip is no exception. It looks completely stupid but there's a lot going on. It deserves at least 2 viewings.

Senior Trip is one of the last few funny movies in the National Lampoon series before they gave way to ultra cheap movies, horribly unoriginal scripts, and poor comedy.

Welcome to Fairmount High, the educational institution of a braindead student body overseen by the idiotic Principal Moss (Matt Frewer) (ala Principal Rooney, only funnier). After the amazingly funny team of D'Agastino and Reggie's plans for a senior class party at the prinicpal's house lands them and some of their buddies in detention (I don't know why the selected few were the only ones to get busted). Only shielding themselves from a harsh punishment by reasoning that somehow the school system is responsible for their troublemaking ways, Principal Moss gives them an assignment: write a letter to the government citing their grievances for the poor education system.

This is something Moss will regret later as the President receives the letter. He calls up the Senator who's state Fairmount High is in and tells them to send the class up to Washington because these kids are going to help sponsor his education reform bill. The last thing anyone in their right mind would do is stick these burnout party kids on a bus (for some Van-damage!) for a couple days. And with Tommy Chong, as "Red" (named for his immunity to horse tranquilizer as he demonstrates later), as the bus driver, all hell breaks loose! The President is in for a big surprise, and that's exactly what Senator Lerner wants. Once he meets the group of misfits, especially Miosky (Eric Edwards) the silent bonehead chow hound, he knows that their appearance before the committee will pull support from the President's bill, and permit him to introduce his own education reform bill.

Meanwhile, Dag's slow talking pothead friend, Reggie, is being chased by a psychotic Trekkie crossing guard, Travis (Kevin McDonald), who Reggie earlier insulted, adding a hilarious subplot of the deranged wacko dressed in the Captain's uniform and carrying a blow-up doll who just won't seem to leave Reggie alone.

The movie, albeit an incredibly stupid plot, it is outrageously funny, watching Dags, Reggie, and the gang foil Principal Moss's plan to keep these misfits from causing too much trouble. Besides Dag's, the arsonist, and Reggie, his spaced out friend, there's Virus, the horny Audio/Visual geek; Wanda, Reggie's equally spaced out girlfriend;, Lisa, the brain; Herbert, the guy who is in perpetual mourning; Meg, the lesbian; Steve, the preppie jerk who gets his just deserts; Miosky; and Carla, the nymphomaniac.

These kids do everything from locking their principal in a flooding convenient store bathroom to steal beer, to drugging their principal and chaperone, a timid math teacher, to throwing a rad party in a crude man's huge hotel room. It is one of the better teen comedies you'll find in the late 90s and one of the last few National Lampoon movies. I recommend checking it out.

I really don't care about what others think, but for me this movie is the best teen comedy ever. Maybe, it's just because I've not seen a lot of teen comedies.

It was year 1996 in Russia, when I bought this movie on VHS in little shop near my house. At this time I was a little stupid kid. I think, I was 10 or 11 years old. This movie made a big impression on me. You know, it's kinda hard to explain my feelings in English, cause it's not my native language, but I'll try.

Since I was a kid, I wanted to become a "cool, mature guy". I thought that being mature is like having parties all the time, drinking alcohol and so on. "Senior trip" had it all in it. It was really funny, it had all this "cool" music, that I tried to like. At this time I got my first "Nirvana" CD. I liked to be the one I was. I liked being bad, talking in bad language, joking about sex. Yes, I was a bad kid. A really bad one. After years of life such as this I get to hospital, I was really depressed, but it has nothing to do with the movie.

It was very cool to listen to grunge music in 1996, though it was not so popular in the US. And the movie felt like a "grunge" movie for me. Yeah, I know it's a very stupid movie, it has a lot of crap in it, but I still like it, cause it was like a Bible at my teenage. It showed me another, alternative life, not the stupid life I was living. My best friend liked this movie, too. He is the only one whom I showed it to this day. For me it's very personal movie, though it's neither about my life nor about my country. I think, it's very hard to understand, why I think it's great. Cause it's just my feeling, which I can't explain in Russian, too.

After this movie I saw some teen comedies like "American pie", "Road trip", "Not another teen movie", "Scary movie", but all of them are a much more badder than "Senior trip". Yes, I laughed when I watched first parts of "American pie" and "Scary movie", but I've never wanted to re-watch them again.

I don't think that this movie will be a hit, if it gets re-published today. The world has changed, the teenagers have changed. This movie is a history now. Nothing else. But in my heart it is a classic.

I really wanted to like this movie, but I could only come up for 3 reasons to suggest anyone else endure this movie. Tommy Chong, Tara Strong and Nicole de Boer. Quite frankly, Chong isn't enough of a reason since he can be seen in better form in a dozen other choices and de Boer is a minor player at best. You are better off watching the last few seasons of Deep Space Nine to be mesmerized by Nicole. So that leaves us with Tara. Yes, Tara is enough of a reason to watch this movie... once. Only because it is the only movie in existence that she is in as a physical entity. If you don't know Tara is the voice behind 100s of cartoon characters you probably watch with your kids. The movie has a few funny moments, but they are rare and limited. Tara on the other hand is absolutely gorgeous.

I should say that "Senior Trip" is mostly one of the silly comedies that they released in the 1990s (of course, it was intended as such). I guess that on one level, it has an important lesson about paying attention to what happens in the government. In my opinion, the best parts were some of the briefer things: the guy chasing the bus, J. Edgar Hoover's grave*, the porno movie in the hotel room, and the epilogues. Otherwise, this isn't the sort of movie that you'd go out of your way to watch. Although I have to admit, Matt Frewer (who turns 50 today) and Tommy Chong play great characters.

*The student was right: J. Edgar Hoover was a fascist. You may have heard the news that just recently came out that Hoover wanted to round up large numbers of Americans in 1950.

I was overly joyed when I saw the trailers for Senior Trip. It appeared to be a very good no brainer for a 90 minute laugh. Unfortunately it wasn't well taken to by movie-goers which made its release to vhs very slow and limited. It hasn't even made it to dvd yet and I know of terribly worse comedies that have, and most are from the present Saturday Night Live Crew. The film does fulfill the area of not only certain high school hijenks, but also a human feeling for the kids of that specific time. It pushed through the ideas of free alcohol, drugs but not so much sex. There was the element of sex, in words and conversation, but no real nudity or fulfillment. Overall an excellent film that would have done better a few years later when teen flix came back with a vengeance. Senior Trip carries with it the National Lampoon feel of Animal House, but doesn't veer off into a demented spoof like Not Another Teen Movie. It filled the void where drama and action films had worn away movie goers in the mid 90s. Watch for Tommy Chong as the bus driver and the chemistry, whether electrified or jaded between the characters.

GOOD INTERESTING STORY THAT IS FUN AND PRETTY EASY TO FOLLOW = 1/2 Star

MEMORABLE DIALOGUE = 1 Star

FEEL A PULL TO WATCH IT AGAIN = 1 Star

MUSIC OR SCORE STANDS OUT = 1 Star

NO NOTICEABLE PLOT HOLES = 0 Stars

STORY GETS RESOLVED OR FEELS COMPLETE IN SOME WAY = 1 Star

I PERSONALLY LIKE OR FEEL A CONNECTION TO THIS STORY = 1 Star

MEMORABLE OR LIKABLE CHARACTERS = 1 Star

MOST THINGS ABOUT THE STORY COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN OR ARE BELIEVABLE = 0 Stars

STORY ISN'T BORING OR REPETITIVE = 1/2 Star



This is a movie I feel like everybody forgot about. It's a great exaggerated party film that I watched constantly in 9th grade. I love the bus scenes and all the shenanigans the students get into. It's super hilarious to see the way their principle reacts. I don't like much of the plot it doesn't flow and feels forced at times. The Star Trek guy scenes are entertaining the first time or two but get old quick. It's a great film that is super fun to watch with friends.

Having laughed my backside off while still in my teens, continued to laugh my cheeks off with each subsequent viewing in my twenties and now, at the ripe age of 36, having recently split my sides once more on the first viewing in nearly ten years, all I can conclude is that the viewers who conspired to rate Senior Trip (as i will always know it) so badly were clearly watching the wrong kind of film for them. It's perfectly casted, over-the-top, amusingly written and acted and ticks just about every box you want from an occasionally crass teen-comedy... in fact it ticks most boxes twice, and in bold. Do not let the score deceive you. Like Flight of The Living Dead, this is a film I have shared with at least twenty people over the years, of different ages, tastes, backgrounds, genders and religions - and I've not had a single negative response.

Videos like 'Senior Trip' are usually in the bargain rack at Walmart for a reason: They Suck! The tagline "They Came, They Saw, They Passed Out" seems so ironic in that it perfectly describes the moviegoer's experience of boredom. Too bad the director didn't actually use Alan Smithee instead just using it for the Forest Humps segment.

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life, and you could not pay me to watch it again. The characters were 1 dimensional, the dialogue was horrible, the plot/subplot went nowhere, and the acting was some of the worst I have ever seen - not even Tommy Chong could save this piece of crap...it's probably a good thing his character dies within 10 minutes onscreen - trust me, I am not giving anything important away. And what was the deal with the crossing guard who chased them? And then the senators who gave the clichéd clap at the end of the speech about how they're all a bunch of losers? (See Not Another Teen Movie as they lampoon this idea) I suppose there's no point in asking about a movie that makes no sense and that a third grader could have written...probably much better too.

The only thing that kept me watching the whole thing is what I call the "train wreck" effect - I just had to see how much worse it could get, or see if there was one saving joke that made the film producable. I was actually looking for places to laugh or find them mildly amusing and only found 2 that got even a hint at a smile: the sex hotel when they first walk in, and the forrest humps segment. Don't get me wrong, I love comedies, even really stupid ones with little plot - but if you're going to have a comedy, it has to be funny. This falls more under the category of horror, or even torture.

Please,do yourself a favor. Avoid this at all costs.

This movie is one of my favorite comedies. One of the funniest I've ever seen. My favorite parts are where the psycho crossing guard guy who is obsessed with Star Trek is stalking Reggie. It's too bad they don't call movies like these classics, if they did, teenagers would rule the film industry. Check it out. 10/10

All the various 'types' represented by the students seem to act like what the other types thought they should be like. None of these close at all to what these 'types' are/were, EXCEPT for the Black kid in the beret! He was PERFECT! Almost half of my senior class were various versions of this guy, though most of us weren't Black (many of us acted like or subconsciously wished we were). Everything he did was exactly on target, right down to chugging vodka in the back of the bus. That guy specifically self-published a zine of student art and political analysis my senior year.

Of course in my day we were bemoaning the way so many of our peers were giving up marijuana In favor of alcohol. We saw it as a dreadful trend.

Although most film critics consider "Plan 9 From Outer Space" the worst film ever made, I submit that "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" was much worse. Without question, it was THE worst film I've ever seen. It condones and makes a joke out of drug use, and the heroes of the movie are stoned-out students who have complete contempt for authority or students who are interested in academics. Sorry, but I find nothing funny about a film that relies on juvenile gutter humor and stereotypical clueless authority figures to sell tickets. It was so horrible that I didn't even see the ending. I didn't have to: based on the comments I've read, my predictions were right on target. In fact, if predicting endings of pathetic films like this was as easy as predicting the course of the stock market, I could bankrupt Bill Gates. My rating for "National Lampoon's Senior Trip": BOMB!

Some people might not find this movie funny because some might think It's gross or some might not know the actors in the movie. Well, I think this is a good movie. It is one of the best National Lampoon movies, and I saw it when I was younger, so it taught me a few things- (Insolen looks like heroin, never smoke a bong after taking 10 reds, to never eat goldfish, and to just have fun). It is also utterly hilarious, with Tommy Chong being always great as the stoned Red bus driver, and Kevin McDonald, who is drop dead funny as a Star Trek fan who talks to a cardboard spock. Definately a lot of fun for any teens or Lampoon fans. Christian conservatives on the other hand, beware. A+

Usually, a big indicator that a movie is worth seeing is if Ebert and his partner (Siskel, as it was in 1995) give it "two thumbs up". Most of the time, any studio that releases the movie that gets two thumbs up will rush to print the accolade on the box of the movie when it is released to video. But if it DOESN'T get two thumbs up, there's no need to worry because there is bound to be somebody who has something good to say about a movie.

I mention this because when I rented this movie a long time ago, not one review graced the cover of this train wreck. Not one. I would soon discover why.

when I watched this movie I was 15 years old, so you figure I was part of this movie's target audience. But I can tell you, as a 15-year old kid, I didn't laugh at all. The movie was totally, utterly unfunny.

The story follows a bunch of high school seniors who embark on a trip to Washington, D.C. A grab-bag of mindless high school stereotypes (handsome rebellious guy, anti-social guy, disgusting fat moron, smart goody-two shoes, computer nerd, promiscuous outcast) get thrown into detention and are assigned to write an essay, which will be sent to Washington, explaining the faults in the modern American education system. The smart goody two shoes, Miss Tracy Milford (Valerie Mahaffey) is the only one who actually writes a paper, and wouldn't you know, the President reads it and loves it. Enter the senior trip.

I hoped that at least things would get funny here, as road trip movies usually involve unusual situations/characters. It's cliche, but who cares if it's done well, right? Well, it's not done well here. Kevin McDonald, the only person in this movie I recognized from other projects (aside from Tommy Chong in an amazingly humor-devoid role as the bus driver who is a raging drug addict) plays a weird Star Trek-obsessed crossing guard, who has a personal vendetta against one of the seniors, and chases the group to D.C. Don't ask.

After a series of stupid and endless scenes, we finally end up in D.C., where the President finds out that the group of kids aren't the scholars he thought that they were. This leads to a mercilessly banal, sappy speech from the seniors about how it's too late for them, but not for tomorrow's children, or something smiliar. I can believe that one could be convinced that public education is in bad shape by parading these kids around, but I can't believe that the response solicited from such a display would be the ever popular 'slow clap', started by the President himself. After that, the movie somehow ends, but not soon enough.

I identified with none of the characters portrayed in the movie. Even Tracy Milford, who at one point looked like she was above the rest of the crew, totally betrayed me when it was revealed that she had feelings for Mark "Dags" D'Agastino (Jeremy Remner, the "star" of the movie), a punk that no girl of intelligence or ambition could ever find attractive. While most teen comedies have outlandish characters, there is always at least a grain of truth to them. I was spoon-fed a series of what looked like an out-of-touch writer's uneducated guess of what they thought high school kids were. So awful was this movie that some seven years after viewing it I can still recall it well enough to review it. Most bad movies I hope to never see again. This is the kind of bad movie I hope to repress.

National Lampoon's Senior Trip: Zero stars (out of four)

This film is one of my honorable mentions of school comedies, it's also another comedy that passed under the radar, like a student passed by a bus. I really got into this movie in the latter part of my adolescence and was looking into crude/teen comedies which were starting to become more frequent in the mid to late 90's. This film you could say is pretty much "Animal House" but in High School, I think that's makes sense going this direction just as "Animal House" parodied/satire a little on students and their subculture in Collage, this does it for teen and their subculture in High School.

This isn't I would say a great comedy by any means it's not trying to be, this is one of those comedies where you just simply turn your brain off and have fun, and that part of the purpose of most comedies anyway to just have fun. I really like the characters both teachers and students their colorful characters and each of them have some memorable moments. Let alone I actually really like the high school they're in, despite the wild and crude company it's strangely a school that actually functions and is clean (or clean as can be), there's no bullies or violence anywhere (or none I can detect), except for one preppy jerk but he's easy to deal with. Other than that I would of liked to gone to this school.

Dags is my favorite character whom is surprisingly by Jeremy Renner. This was his film debut and it's one heck of a debut, this movie seems like the least likely film this famous actor would ever do/did; but then again same can be said about a lot of other actors out there. Also, at the time he sort of looks like actor Brendan Fraser if you can believe that. Jeremy is just great at playing a total rebel slacker, what I like about him is he's not afraid to put it out there or do what he feels like or feels must be done. He's also slightly determined in getting what he want as there is his pursuit in winning over the character Lisa whom is pretty, she's a person that is on the studious side and just doesn't know when to loosen up, and she does once she spends more time with Dags. Dags has some good lines, he says my favorite line in the film, "Let's do some Van Damage!" I just think that's an awesome quote, I like the say that sometimes if I feel like being aggressive, and on a side note Van Damme is one of my favorite action stars which make it more fun.

Principal Todd Moss by Matt Fewer is funny, he's basically the school authority archetype, whom is just extremely uptight from his voice and wardrobe. He's trying so very hard (or very little) in trying to keep everything at the school going right. It's just funny how much grief he is being dealt from Dags and the fellow students which makes him lose a little of his cool.

Tommy Chong as Red is funny despite only in the film for a small amount of time, as he's pretty much playing the same character he's played in his "Cheech and Chong" films and as usual does it well. It's funny that this guy has became a bus driver despite the fact he really shouldn't be driving, though fitting for the company he's escorting. It's also funny how much grief he gives the principal showing how much disrespect he has for authority figures and is clearly on the kids' side, from not opening the doors unless he says the magic word, it cracks me up when we find out what that word is.

On a side note you also see famous voice actress Tara Strong whom looked pretty good and has a little memorable moment in the film. As well as Nicole de Boer whom is a sci fi TV show alumni from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "The Dead Zone", she has a really small role in this as well and say's another favorite quote with some girl in the psa movie scene "Poor Suzy."

Other than that, the film is just plain stupid fun full of stupid fun antics. There are lots of them, from an assembly scene when there is some hippie/ Christian rock group called "High on Life" (they seriously should have rethought that band title) whom is singing let's just say a song not on my favorites list. Dags and his friend Reggie of course put on a cool heavy metal song and the assembly turns into a rave, I remember thinking "yeah, now this is an assembly."

A scene where al the students are watching one of those bad black and white psa movies. This scene sort of predates "Rifftrax" as we see the students mocking the film as it goes on. That scene always cracks me up because it's true, a lot of those psa films in the schools weren't always on par in quality or some of them can be strange, despite the good message they try too hard to send. Let alone the fact that the main guy and girl character always had a name that rhymes or ends with the letter y like Jimmy, Billy, Suzy, etc. Either there weren't that many names at the time, or the writer was too lazy to think up any other names.

There is another little scene which was sweet and funny when Dag's friend Reggie and this shy girl, whom throughout the film always had her eyes covered. Both are watching "Jason Goes to Hell" and she says something of Jason and Freddy fandom which is funny but is really on the nose as that comment was prolific to the film "Freddy versus Jason".

There is also this rather strange subplot involving a psycho crossing guard (played by Kevin McDonald from "Kids in the Hall") whom let's just say his Starship isn't operating on warp speed. It's just funny as we see him relentlessly pursuing Reggie for a crack comment he's made (man that guy really can't take a joke) and at the same time taking his fandom for the show "Star Trek" too far. There are several jokes and references on the show going on in this subplot, the writer obvious was a big fan of Trek.

"Senior Trip" is worth a trip.

Rating: 3 stars

Where did this movie go wrong? Where do I start?

1.) In being made by National Lampoon, it appeared to try way too hard to be "Animal House". There was a stupid fat guy, an uptight head of the school, a straight laced honor student, and the rest of the student got drunk and/or stoned. There was one militant black guy that would have made an interesting character, but his character was pushed to the back too often. Above all, you didn't feel any sort of sympathy for the main characters, which is why the movie didn't play out very well.

2.) The principal was unnecessarily stupid. When the "evil" senator threatened to have the principal revoked from his job, I didn't blame him. The principal character should have been the moral center of the story, the only sane person in an insane situation. That kind of situation makes for uproarious laughter, and it's something the writers, not to mention the actor who played him, should have taken into account.

3.) The title of the movie didn't fit. Yes the students were seniors, and yes they were going on a trip, making the title "Senior Trip" sound obvious enough. However, the title made you think that every senior was going on this trip, which was not true. Plus, the students didn't embark on the trip until halfway through the movie, since the premise took too long to extrapolate before the movie's main premise got underway. In my opinion, the beginning scene with the "High On Life" band was completely unnecessary, not to mention not funny. I'm not a stoner, and I would have booed that band.

4.) The movie employed too many movie clichés which weighed down the potential hilarity of the movie, from the uptight teacher getting her hands on alcohol to the undeserved slow clapping to the unnecessary epilogue at the end of the movie. One could argue that it was parodying other movies, but this movie didn't appear to parody anything.

5.) Kevin McDonald. Simply putting him in any movie is a bad idea. Sure he was funny when he was with the Kids In The Hall, but nearly every movie he has been in has sucked, from "The Godson" to "The Ladies Man" to this movie. Plus, his character wasn't necessary to the movie, and you had no clue why he was chasing these kids to D.C. other than the fact that he had nothing better to do. If there is a plus side to his character, it reminds you that hardcore Trekkies are too damn annoying to function properly in today's society.

I did buy this movie for $8.00 in a special "Double Feature" edition with "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1" on the other side of the disc. At least four of my dollars didn't go to waste.

Very funny, ahead of it's time comedy, which was very clever. I have to admit, the Friday the 13th stuff had my crying in joy. The whole movie is a riot and I know if it got re-released today it would be a hit, but it won't be re-released-of course.

I enjoyed it tremendously and I know you will too!

AM

Hilarious film with comic characters bordering on the grotesque from the driver who smokes guns to students who think of everything except studying.

There is also a light political satire which, however, is lost between profanity and burp. In the end the losers manage to get away with it but they are not wiser for this which makes the trip they had started meaningless.

This is a stoner film.

If you're looking for a film with any kind of substance, this is not the movie for you.

If you're looking for a way to kill some time and maybe get a couple of laughs, go for it. It's definitely much funnier stoned.