College Road Trip

College Road Trip ultimately comes off as precisely the sort of over-the-top and unapologetically silly endeavor one might’ve anticipated, with the egregiously broad work of stars Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symone undoubtedly standing tall amongst the film’s overtly irritating elements. The storyline follows Raven-Symone’s Melanie Porter as she embarks on a road trip with her friends (Brenda Song’s Nancy and Margo Harshman’s Katie) to scout potential colleges, though the journey proves to be far more arduous than expected due to the presence of Melanie’s overbearing father (Lawrence’s James). Though the movie has been infused with a few tolerable sequences (eg James, desperate for Melanie to attend a nearby school, recruits his coworkers to pose as helpful (and flirtatious) students), College Road Trip is, by and large, a lowest-common-denominator cash grab geared almost exclusively towards Raven-Symone’s most indiscriminating fans. The proliferation of eye-rollingly sentimental moments within the screenplay (which took four people to write!) certainly doesn’t help matters, nor does the relentless, downright unconscionable mugging for the camera by Lawrence and Raven-Symone. Donnie Osmond’s surprisingly amusing role as an exuberant parent aside, College Road Trip boasts few elements designed to rope in viewers over a specific age – with the end result an effort that’s mindlessly watchable, admittedly, yet entirely forgettable.

** out of ****