In the ‘70s and ‘80s, sex comedies ruled at the box office, with audiences swarming movie theaters to see films with young people getting into one naughty misadventure after another. The genre started dying out in the ‘90s but came back in a big way with American Pie, a movie that influenced countless imitators. Most of them were forgettable, but Road Trip (2000) is a sublime slice of early aughts humor you can now stream for free on Tubi.
The premise of Road Trip is that two high school sweethearts end up going to different colleges, trying valiantly to make a long-distance relationship work. Things go south when he cheats on his girlfriend, and one of his friends accidentally mails the sex tape to his gal. Now, the cheater and his friends must go on an epic road trip to save his relationship, and after this bonkers voyage across the craziest parts of America, none of them will ever be the same.
The Cast Goes Road Trippin’
The charismatic lead of Road Trip is Breckin Meyer (best known outside this movie for Rat Race) as the man racing across the country to intercept a sex tape. He is joined by Seann William Scott (best known for American Pie) as a roguish buddy whose charm causes as much trouble as it prevents. Rounding out these familiar faces is DJ Qualls (best known for The Core) as the shy, nerdy kid destined to come out of his shell somewhere along the way.
The biggest standout actor of Road Trip is Tom Green, but that’s not always a good thing. Green (who was at the height of his MTV fame at the time) brings an electric energy to his performance, giving his character a kind of mock mania that is undeniably compelling. However, Green is also the source of most of the movie’s unfunniest jokes, and that’s due as much to his tryhard performance as the film’s occasionally uneven script.
Hitting The Road And Hitting The Jackpot
When Road Trip came out, audiences really loved the quirky vibes of this throwback sex comedy. Against a meager budget of $16 million, this film earned $119.8 million, enough money to warrant a couple of sequels. The first was EuroTrip, a spiritual sequel that bombed at the box office; later, we got Beer Pong, a direct-to-video sequel to Road Trip so incredibly bad that showing it to your friends should be considered a war crime.
While it was a box office smash relative to its budget, critics weren’t quite sure whether this was a Road Trip worth taking. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 59 percent, meaning that it falls just under the threshold to be a “fresh” film. Interestingly, critics generally thought the movie was mostly funny (despite some hit or miss jokes) but thought that the cast (especially Tom Green) was more of a mixed bag.
The Real Road Trip Was The Friends We Made Along The Way
For me, the best part of Road Trip is right there in its name: the trip. This is a movie filled to the gills with the most colorful characters and insane situations this side of Huckleberry Finn, and it’s genuinely fun to hang out in this bizarre world. Even if you don’t like the characters (how dare you!) in Road Trip, the movie allows you to experience the sublimely nostalgic world of being a college student in the early aughts.
That’s part of why I love this movie, of course: as someone who started college the year this film came out, this movie is pure comfort food because it helps me revisit a simpler time. Everything seemed more urgent back then, and watching Road Trip’s characters ping-ponging off each other is a fun reminder of when I was just as passionate (and, yes, just as stupid) as they are. Plus, Road Trip is just as funny now as it was a quarter century ago, having withstood the test of time far better than my own aging body!
Will you agree that Road Trip has held up remarkably well, or is this one raunchy sex comedy that you’d rather mail across the country than ever watch again? You won’t find out until you swing on over to Tubi and stream this turn-of-the-century classic for free.
While watching, don’t forget the first rule of any good road trip: bring plenty of your favorite snacks!
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