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Van Wilder: Freshman Year

  • Is it age appropriate?

    About our ratings

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    Not age appropriate for kids under 17, age appropriate for kids over 18; suggested age 16.
  • Is it any good?

    1.0
  • Common Sense says

    Campus sex-booze-drugs prequel bashes religion, sobriety.

Themes in this movie include:   dating/crushes, growing up, revenge
updated 07.11.09

Why We Rated This off for Ages 16 and Under

What to watch out for

  • Messages:

    Glorifies anti-authoritarian behavior, with smooth hero Van Wilder spreading a mindset of hypersexual partying and gratification -- which is depicted as healthy and positive. Chastity and celibacy are identified with the villains -- as is Bible-reading and religious observance. Miltary cadets and officers are grim sadists prone to violence, elitism, and impotence. The "education" experience consists of socializing, sex, and revenge; scholarship/studying only comes up in the context of sex-ed class.
  • Role models :

    Van Wilder is upheld as a man's man with an "I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do" attitude. He courts one girl throughout, but his agenda comes across as reforming her of conservative discipline (and humiliating her cadet boyfriend). Stereotyping is rampant. There's a Jamaican wannabe (a white student who listens to reggae and smokes pot) and a pidgin-speaking, kung-fu-ing Chinese student (his name incorporates the F-word), whose sex interludes with a fellow Asian encompass erotic use of egg rolls and chopsticks. ROTC types are depicted as torture-happy, racist bullies and sexually repressed. A few senior figures (the fathers of the heroine and hero) are shown in a positive manner.
  • Violence:

    Football tackles, a few thrown punches, an extra knocked senseless by a golf ball. Hand to hand combat between male and female cadets. A gun brandished threateningly.
  • Sex:

    Lots of sex (and sex metaphors, verbal and visual), masturbation suggestions. Topless girls and cheerleaders clad in underwear or lingerie. A veritable gallery of penis-shaped sex toys displayed and used by co-eds. Oral sex granted by both enticing females and a dog -- a male bulldog with large genitalia. A variety of bizarre sexual positions are demonstrated (by mostly clothed subjects) in a sex-ed class. Talk of pornography.
  • Language:

    The f-word, the s-word, and "asshole" uttered numerous times. An Asian student's name is Yu Dom Fok.
  • Consumerism:

    References to other movies (like Scarface), as well as Wheel of Fortune; a thinly disguised Playboy magazine, and of course a natural tie-in to early Van Wilder antics.
  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

    A white student pretending to be Jamaican blissfully smokes or otherwise ingests marijuana. Party-hearty drinking, including the main character  "waterboarded" with beer.
 

What Parents Need to Know

About Van Wilder: Freshman Year

Parents need to know that this is a review of the unrated DVD and not the R-rated version from theaters. This youth-baiting sex comedy is centered on "fornication," partying, drugs, and humiliation-revenge as key parts of the college experience. Much female cleavage and toplessness, and even "abstaining" students (the girls, anyway) are practically nymphomaniacs when tempted. Religious types and military (with a few exceptions) are depicted as immoral right-wing hostiles, compared to the freewheeling title dude, whose anything-goes lifestyle is made to look heroic. Profanity is not nonstop but plentiful enough. Seeing other Van Wilder movies isn't necessary for following the, er, intricacies of the narrative.

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Families Can Talk About

  • Families can talk about the concept of the "Big Man on Campus" -- not terminology employed here, but the underlying motif of the whole Van Wilder movie series. An American icon going back for generations, the BMOC is the ultra-cool, smooth school-society leader and "fixer" who seems to get away with everything. Compare Van Wilder particularly with the more family-friendly Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Is Van the kind of guy that Ferris will grow up to become?
  • Ask kids if they enjoy this kind of extreme-sex comedy and why. Do they believe that college is really like this?

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Our Members Say

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Most Recent Reviews

  1. I rate this title on for age 2 and give it 0.0
    • My highlights are:
    • Positive messages
    • Good role models

    perfect

    no concerns

  2. Teen Reviewer Age 17
    Lives in Delaware
    I rate this title on for age 16 and give it 4.0

    i liked but what do i know im a teen

  3. Adult Reviewer
    Lives in California
    I rate this title iffy for age 13 and give it 1.0
    My concerns are:
    • Inappropriate sexual content
    • Drinking, smoking, or drug use

    New Van Wilder isn't any better than the first two

    Van Wilder is back as a freshman in college and is the same as ever. This new Van Wilder movie is more or less, exactly the same as the first two Van Wilders. Van Wilder is introduced as a fun loving, young adult who parties without consequence. He meets a girl that he likes, then meets her up-tight boyfriend. Then the movie continues with pranks played by both Van and the jealous boyfriend on each other. Then, the boyfriend pulls a prank that seems to have gotten Van kicked out of school and rid of for good, until the climax where Van humiliates the ex-boyfriend and wins the girl. That's the basic outline of all three Van Wilder movies (with the exception of #2, where Van is replaced by Taj). If you didn't like the first two Van Wilders, then I guarantee, that you won't like this one. This new Van Wilder is no different. If you're a fan of the first two, then it's worth a rental, just to see all the pranks that were passed over by the creators of the first two. Parents should know that this Van Wilder is just as raunchy as the first two. There are bare breasts, bodily-function pranks, sex and sexual references galore, marijuana use, and moderate R-rated language. Van gets a bj during his graduation from high school speech. He sticks vibrators in girls dorm rooms (which they all use) and then tapes vibrators underneath a bench causing a group Christian girls to all have orgasms. A dog has humongous balls. A man thinking he's getting a "happy ending" to a massage, but instead gets a bj from a dog. Van teaches students about sex positions, using clothed, male and female demonstrators. Van walks into a cheerleaders locker room and trims all their shirts and a skirts. Two men are tied together and the one in the back gets an erection, and the list goes on and on. There are about 10 f-words, and a handful of s-words and other swear words. To parents, If you had no problems letting your kids see either of the first two Van Wilders, then this one is fine.

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