4/10
Another "Beach Party" knock-off without the comedy, the chemistry, or the charm...
11 July 2008
Columbia Pictures dipping deep into their teen bag, coming up with little more than a running advertisement for Coke and James Stacy in a series of ski fashions for men. Ultra clean-cut tale concerns a young man hiring entertainment (ski bunnies) and a work crew (a cook and a soda-jerk) to work at a mountain lodge which he recently inherited; his buddy promotes the place by putting a detour sign in the road and redirecting traffic their way. No script, no talent, no witty repartee--these dull 'kids' are a lazy lot. There's a pretty good fight scene in the chalet, a groovy wedding tag, and some mind-boggling musical numbers (psychedelic-sweater wearing foursome the Reflections croon a ridiculous ditty about sugary sweets while the bunnies pass out huge lollipops to the guests!). The dramatic tension in the plot is served by having two of the guests on secret assignment to ruin the place; the comedy comes after embarrassed-to-be-up-here Stacy worms his way into a gig as a ski-instructor and attempts to get into a young lady's bedroom at night (he trips the alarm and feigns sleepwalking!). This is another case of a major studio trying to ape the low-brow teens-on-their-own genre begun a few years before with A.I.P.'s "Beach Party". It isn't too awful, but nobody here shows any pizazz, nor any individual style; most of the girls try too hard for cute perkiness while the guys play aw-shucks with the women and big brother with each other. On the other hand, those Suzuki motorbikes are coolness defined. *1/2 from ****
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