College Road TripMovie Reviews

Poster art for "College Road Trip."

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Avg. Critic Score: 36 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
6 OK for kids 6+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 58
    Entertainment Weekly |

    At its best when it drops any pretense of plot for sheer goof (as when a Japanese sightseer belts ''Sister Christian'' on a karaoke tour bus), and at its worst when Lawrence manages to out-ham even his porky four-legged costar. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Walter Addiego

    Relies on slapstick scenes that are neither essential nor especially clever. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety | Justin Chang

    This overplayed, underachieving laffer feels thoroughly manufactured to Disney specifications. Read full review

  • 40
    Washington Post |

    Perhaps there will be people who do laugh at Lawrence and Raven-Symon screaming in tandem, or mugging their way along every tortured mile of their road trip, or unwittingly joining a sky-diving club and having to parachute into Washington so Melanie can make her interview. Heck, it was all really funny when they did it on "I Love Lucy." Read full review

  • 40
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    What is puzzling is the incompatibility of the two leads with their roles. Raven is supposed to be a high school senior on a road trip to check out prospective universities. But she acts like a adolescent on a sugar high during a weekend sleepover. Read full review

  • 40
    The New York Times | Jeannette Catsoulis

    Eyes popping and mouths agape, Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symon mug their way through College Road Trip as if it were a silent movie -- which, come to think of it, would have been a lot less irritating. Read full review

  • 40
    Los Angeles Times | Gene Seymour

    As over-the-top as Raven-Symon and Lawrence are, the most live-action cartoon characters in College Road Trip are the father-daughter tandem of Doug (Donny Osmond) and Wendy (Molly Ephraim), whose nitro-powered perkiness pass the point of grating and move into a perversely antic state of grace. Read full review

  • 38
    Boston Globe |

    Highly formulaic, make-'em-laugh-then-make-'em-cry comedy. Read full review

  • 25
    Philadelphia Inquirer | David Hiltbrand

    The whole project is a cloying, artificial mess. The slapstick comedy doesn't bite, and the formulaic sentimentality doesn't grip. Read full review

  • 25
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    The tagline for College Road Trip is "You Can't Get There Fast Enough." But for those who sit through this humorless and massively predictable movie, a more apt phrase would be: "You Can't Get Out of There Fast Enough." Read full review

View more reviews for College Road Trip on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 6+ Even young kids will like father-daughter comedy.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this comedy stars Raven-Symone and features Lucas Grabeel and Brenda Song, all of whom lots of kids know and love from their popular Disney Channel shows and movies. Given that immediate Disney tie-in, expect even young elementary schoolers to show an interest in the movie. The good news is that despite Martin Lawrence's history as a foulmouthed stand-up comic, this is one family-friendly flick. There are a couple of scenes of slapsticky mayhem (like when a pet pig runs amok at a wedding reception), and a few moments of teens badmouthing parents who just don't understand; otherwise, there's nothing here to worry about.
  • Families can talk about how the movie portrays parent-child relationships. Which father-daughter dynamic seems more realistic -- Melanie and the chief's or Wendy and Doug's? Why? Why do you think Disney cast so many familiar TV faces in this movie? Kids: Did you want to see the movie more because you know the actors from their shows? What else made you want to see it?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Melanie says she's going to spend the night at her best friend's house, but they're really going to a dance party. The chief has his deputies pose as college students during a tour of Northwestern. He also sneaks into a sorority house to check on Melanie. Asians on a tour bus are depicted stereotypically -- they're all karaoke obsessed.
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence and scariness: Slapsticky scenes of the chief nearly falling from a second-story window and a pig going wild at a fancy wedding. Two people are buzzed with a taser.
  • sex false0 Sexy stuff: Brief goodbye/hello kisses and hugs between parents, and mild flirting between Melanie and a couple of college guys.
  • language false0 Language: Very mild: "stupid" and "dumb."
  • consumerism false3 Consumerism: Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh, and Georgetown University receive a lot of free publicity; products include a Dell laptop and a Mitsubishi flat-screen TV.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Not an issue
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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