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Immediately after graduation ceremonies at Hudson High School, Ohio teen Scott Thomas (Scott Mechlowicz) is dumped unceremoniously by his cheating girlfriend Fiona (Kristin Kreuk of Smallville fame, cast against type as a selfish bitch). Scotty's parents considerately capture his pain with their camcorder. It seems that Fiona has been having an intense fling with punk rocker Donny (Matt Damon in a bizarre cameo), and apparently everyone but Scotty knew. This point is driven home cruelly at a graduation party that night with the sadistic little head-banging number "Scotty Doesn't Know," Donny at the microphone and Fiona gyrating beside him. But cruel fate isn't quite finished with Scotty. He'd been corresponding for years with a friend in Germany and when Scotty reveals that his girlfriend just dumped him, his German friend suggests a trip to the States to get together.

Scotty's best friend, the homophobic Cooper Harris (Jacob Pitts), provokes Scotty into blowing off his apparently homosexual pen pal; he fires off an obnoxious, bridge-burning message. What Scotty does not realize is that his e-mail pal, named Mieke, is not the equivalent of the American Mike; she's is a lovely Teutonic babe (Jessica Boehrs). This is soon revealed by Scotty's nosy little brother, Bert (Nial Iskhakov), as he snoops into Scotty's e-mail. It seems that Bert apparently knows more German than the high school graduate and the little twerp correctly deduces the gender of Scotty's correspondent.

Thousands of miles away, Mieke is terribly hurt by Scotty's harsh e-mail and places a lock on any of his future messages (why he didn't then open a Yahoo e-mail account to apologize isn't clear, but if he had we wouldn't have much a movie). Scotty's crushed; he suddenly realizes that Mieka is the one. Cooper - horny and looking for a great excuse to chase down some hot European sex - listens to Scotty's tale of woe and immediately insists that they run off to Berlin to track Mieke down.  Desperate, Scotty readily agrees. The game's afoot.

We follow their adventures through England, France (where they hook up with two high school friends, fraternal twins Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Jamie (Travis Wester), who are on a summer European road trip), Amsterdam, Eastern Europe, Germany, and Italy. Along the way, you can expect silly and nonsensical situations; sex, drunkenness, drugs, and interminable misunderstandings are the cornerstones of gags that sometime work and sometime don't. When they don't a moan may be in order, but when they do, I found myself chuckling out loud. And the chuckles were enough to push me over the edge; the laughs outnumbered the groans. Regular readers know of my penchant for logical storylines and believable cause and effect, but they don't apply here. This is silliness elevated to entertainment. I can't fault the filmmakers for the nonsense; it's clever nonsense.

Jacob Pitts seems to be a surrogate David Spade, but is far less annoying. Travis Wester is a clever anal compulsive who must plan every detail of his trip before stepping onto the plane. Michelle Trachtenberg is charming as the sexy girl inexplicably treated as one of the guys. And Scott Mechlowicz does a lovely job as a hapless victim who deserves better. The filmmakers are clearly pandering to adolescents old enough to see the movie; lots of gratuitous nudity punctuates the film, but these guys are equal opportunity exploiters. A nude beach scene is littered with naked men; the women, tired of being ogled during tourist season, have fled.

I don't know if I enjoyed this film because my expectations were so low or if it represents genuine wit. I discovered the answer as I explored the supplements

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film's theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in anamorphic video. This is a reasonable transfer, but not up to the best that DVD has to offer. The images have been low passed, so there is a slight visible softness. Edge halos are present, but they rarely intrude. At boundaries of high contrast a full cycle of ringing is seen, but the amplitudes are low, so even when halos are visible, that are not offensive. Color accuracy is excellent. Skin tones, and there's lots of flesh, are very natural. Highly saturated colors are vividly painted to the screen with no smearing or chroma noise. The nighttime scenes have fine shadow detail.  I noticed no compression artifacts.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is pretty good. The surround channels are not used very much, so the soundstage is predominantly confined to the front of the theater. Sound effects are present to add a sense of realism to the onscreen action and are not a focal point of the film. They serve the action commendably. The rockin' score has a satisfyingly deep bass line, but it's impossible to judge the fidelity since such music is so processed. The dialog remains distortion free throughout, with no audible compression raspiness.

An alternative English track is available in Dolby Surround 2.0; the alternate language track is in French, presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles are provided in Spanish, French, and English.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

After loading, the DVD opens with several non-anamorphic trailers that have an aggregate running time of 4:03: Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgandy (for which I hold little hope); Along Came Polly; Envy; the DVD re-release of Pitch Black; and, the DVD release of the animated Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. They may be skipped with the next chapter button.

The first two supplements on the DVD are feature-length commentaries. Both are by director and co-writer Jeff Schaffer, and co-writers David Mandel and Alec Berg. The first is the sober commentary; the second is the party along commentary in which the filmmakers drink their way through the film to questionable effect. Irreverent and self-deprecating, the filmmakers immediately capture the listeners' good will. I enjoyed both commentaries and there is little informational overlap. In the first, there is a sincere effort to describe the process of making the film. The comments relate to the esthetic and the technical. But throughout, the three filmmakers demonstrate an underlying wit that kept me entertained. The second commentary is bizarre; as alcohol loosens the filmmakers up, they are more inclined to offer anecdotes from the shoot. But after an hour of serious drinking, giggles and a slow degradation of coherence drifts into the conversations. The guys are clearly having a good time, munching on pizza and taking bathroom breaks in real-time, but calling a friend or loved one for a ride home to avoid driving drunk isn't very germane (but is very responsible). And yet, I still enjoyed what they had to say.

The Gag Reel (5:28) is a delightful montage of slips, gaffs, and giggles. I'm always up for a gag reel. You'll find thirteen deleted scenes with an aggregate running time of 18:09. Few deserved to be included in the final cut, but I must make an exception for Joanna Lumley's wonderful hostel clerk. Surrounded by dozens of cats, she recites a truly funny monologue describing the delights of Amsterdam's best youth hostel. These scenes may be played individually or sequentially, with or without director's commentary. The Alternate Ending (2:44) proved unpopular with test audiences and was replaced with the ending you'll find in the theatrical and unrated cuts of the film. I couldn't agree more. The original ending is certainly more ironic, but left me cold.

The next two features smack of the filmmakers' sense of humor. Fully appreciating the exploitative nature of the nudity and more naughty scenes, the DVD contains both a Nude Scene Index and an Unrated Scene Index. Select the first scene from each supplement and you'll be able to enjoy all the more prurient high points of the film. Or you may enjoy random access to your favorite sequence. Nude Beach Exposed (6:14) is a brief featurette that, alas, does not spend time with those lovely women basking in the sun. It's about the shooting of the sequence with fifty naked men.

Moving on to the second page of special features is not intuitively obvious; select or click on the arrow that points away from "Main Menu" and you'll be transported to another page of choices. On that second menu page you'll find How to Pick a Director (1:33), a little short that explains how this three- man team chose the credited director. Apparently the Director's Guild of America frowns on a three-director credit. Eurotrip Bootleg (3:39) is a droll review of a counterfeit DVD bought in New York's Chinatown three months before this official release reached the street. This is a typical camcorder capture from within a motion picture theater, complete with terrible sound and horrible images that were badly framed. The filmmaking trio stick tongues deep in cheeks to critique the work. Their sarcasm then segues to their edited down bootleg of the bootleg. I like these guys.

The Music of Eurotrip offers three choices, a "Scotty Doesn't Know" sing along, a "Scotty Doesn't Know" music video, and a promo for the film's soundtrack CD. The Photo Gallery contains fifty-three stills from the shoot; several are for scenes that didn't make it into the film. For the curious and exceptionally patient, the Script is available on (gasp) 355 text screens. This is the original spec script, not the shooting script. Production Notes consumes twenty pages and contains some interesting stuff not covered elsewhere. Cast highlights the professional biographies of eight of the cast members. Filmmakers does the same for thirteen of the behind the scenes people.

And do watch the film's closing credits. Not only are there some delightful outtakes, but as the credits wind down, you'll find some rather amusing expressions of appreciation. The 93- minute feature film is organized into twenty chapters.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

There are no PC enhanced extras on the disc.

Parting Thoughts