Without A Paddle

Without a redeeming feature. This painfully unfunny backwoods romp rings all of the slob comedy bells with hardly a single addition of its own; it's like something directed by the hero of Memento, assuming he watched Police Academy just prior to his head trauma. Three 30-ish childhood chums (restless husband Matthew Lillard, nerdy doctor Seth Green, penniless ne'er-do-well Dax Shepard) are more or less bequeathed a map to D.B. Cooper's treasure; setting out to retrieve the loot, they naturally find themselves lost and under siege in a strange and savage land. You can practically sing along with the stereotypes and story beats, including the de rigueur attack by a giant bear, the sneering references to Deliverance, the rough-country good-ole-boys with murderous designs, the hot chick hippies who live in a tree (and the occasional joke about their hairy legs) and the moral that it's okay to lack material riches when you're a bunch of hick-stomping, homophobic yahoos from the city. Wheeeee! I never thought I'd feel sorry for Burt Reynolds, but his Grizzly Adams turn here is a career nadir not even he deserves. And for the last time, film school graduates, your ability to drop Spielberg/Lucas references does not make you automatically hilarious. Extras include a deluded commentary by director Steven Brill, where he approvingly notes someone's remark that "it's The Goonies for adults," a video commentary with Brill and the principals that is substantially funnier than the movie, which isn't saying much and an episode of MTV Making the Movie that I must begrudgingly admit is better than most DVD "making ofs." There are also 13 deleted scenes with optional director commentary, with a 14th hidden under an Easter egg, six MTV "interstitials" (commercials to us simple folk) and the trailer. (Paramount)