It was probably inevitable that the reality-programming mania that has taken over television would eventually invade the multiplex.
But judging by “The Real Cancun,” which is being proudly billed as “the first reality feature film,” as if documentaries had never existed until now, there isn’t much of a difference between watching ordinary people behaving badly in your living room and seeing their antics writ large on a movie screen.
Yes, this gleefully raunchy, R-rated movie, which follows a group of spring breakers raising hedonistic hell in Cancun, boasts a lot more cursing, nudity and all-around bad behavior than network TV could ever allow.
But the voyeuristic pull and guilty-pleasure hangover remain the same. The brainchild of producers Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray, the geniuses behind MTV’s long-running (and highly influential) “The Real World,” the movie follows the familiar format of rounding up a diverse group of young adults, putting them up in swanky, fashionably furnished digs, and then filming their every move, with the hopes of unearthing a plotline or two in the editing room.
“The Real Cancun,” which was filmed only a month ago and rushed to theaters to beat a similar project at another studio, does have one great story arc: Alan Taylor, a shy, endearingly nerdy 18-year-old from Texas who has never drunk so much as a drop of alcohol (“Like, EVER?” one of his disbelieving roomies asks) and is equally inexperienced with the opposite sex, although girls are the only things he can think about (“I just want to see some boobies!” he declares).
Alan’s transformation from reserved wallflower to voracious party animal is the most engrossing element of “The Real Cancun”: He’s like a real-life version of Anthony Michael Hall from “Sixteen Candles,” complete with his own fairy-tale ending.
The rest of the movie consists of situations that are more “Temptation Island” than “Real World”: Casey, the aspiring model and alcoholic-in-the-making from Miami whose favorite pickup line is “Do any of you girls want to make out or anything?”; David and Heidi, lifelong best friends from Boston who have always kept their relationship strictly platonic; Roxanne and Nicole, exhibitionist twin sisters from Texas who apparently thought they had been cast in a “Girls Gone Wild” videotape; and Paul, a 20-year-old player from Los Angeles who falls hard for his curvaceous roomie Sky, but discovers she’s not about to give it up without making him WORK.
In between, you get lots of wet T-shirt contests, tequila body shots and drunken, groping sex.
It’s not much, but it isn’t awful, either, provided you’re interested in this sort of thing to begin with. You could argue that “The Real Cancun” isn’t worth shelling out seven bucks for when you can get the same thing on TV, and you would be right. But it sure beats “Fear Factor: The Movie.”
—
THE REAL CANCUN
2-1/2 stars
Cast: Benjamin Fletcher, Nicole Frilot, Roxanne Frilot, Brittany Brown-Hart, David Ingber, Jeremy Jazwinski, Amber Madison, Paul Malbry, Marquita Marshall, Laura Ramsey, Matthew Slenske, Alan Taylor, Heidi Vance, Jorell Washington, Casey Weeks, Sarah Wilkins.
Director: Rick De Oliveira.
Producers: Mary-Ellis Bunim, Jonathan Murray.
A New Line Cinema. Running time: 90 minutes. Vulgar language, nudity, sexual situations, adult themes.
—
(c) 2003, The Miami Herald.
Visit The Miami Herald Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.herald.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-04-24-03 1237EDT
Send questions/comments to the editors.
