VarietyCom
Peter Debruge
Primitive in all the wrong ways, National Lampoon's Homo Erectus sets comedy back a good 2 million years, reminding auds of simpler times when a club to the head or a spear to the crotch was all it took to get a laugh. Pic finds writer-director-star Adam Rifkin in wannabe Woody Allen mode as prehistory's first nerd, a bespectacled caveman who muses about love while his buddies go about clubbing their female companions for sex. Bone-headed humor and fleeting nudity may appeal to a few Neanderthals on homevid after brief theatrical exposure.
Homo Erectus was produced by the U. of Texas at Austin as part of the school's since-disbanded Burnt Orange program, which gave approximately 50 film students a chance to gain practical experience on a professional movie set. In this case, "professional" may seem overly generous, as the end result suggests a low-budget production made by and for frat boys.
Of primary appeal will be "Heroes'" Ali Larter, who shot the film in late 2005, nearly a year before that show debuted. Here she plays Fardart, a comely cavewoman blessed with blonde hair extensions and 21st-century tooth whitener. Rifkin's sentimental Ishbo has spent his whole life wooing Fardart, but she fancies his alpha-male older brother Thudnik (Hayes MacArthur).
Too shy to knock his soulmate unconscious and drag her back to his cave, Ishbo is reduced to inventing bicycles, pants and other novel devices that bring ridicule from the rest of his tribe. "It's about time we started thinking outside of the box here people!" a frustrated Ishbo shouts, to which Thudnik replies, "What the hell is a box?"
When Rifkin the actor isn't falling into giant mounds of mammoth dung or trying to free a wayward snake from his loincloth, Rifkin the writer-director goes out of his way to accommodate gratuitous toplessness, bestiality gags, gay-bashing and Stone Age stoner jokes.
Of the pic's many C-list cameos, porn star Ron Jeremy seems most at home with the material. Tom Arnold's character puts the "homo" in "homo sapien," while Carol Alt plays the leader of a group of proto-feminist Amazons who shave their legs but let their nether-regions grow wild. David Carradine and Gary Busey look out of place as leaders of rival clans, whose long-standing rivalry triggers a clumsy CG skirmish.
Scenic Austin locations make reasonable stand-ins for a really long time B.C. (especially when augmented by Monument Valley exteriors). The U. of Texas students apprenticed far below the line, which means they aren't the ones to blame for the pic's loose editing, generic-sounding score and subpar digital effects, all of which were overseen by industry vets. Production values look amateurish compared to Rifkin's earlier projects such as The Chase and Detroit Rock City.
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