As in his directorial debut, The Zero Effect, Jake Kasdan has once more turned out a low-key, quirky comedy
extolling the virtues of being an oddball loser. Colin Hanks stars as the
hopeful high school student who plans a series of wacky schemes to get into
Stanford when his transcript fails to make it in time. The gags, and the
script, are a mixed bag: Apparent subplot leads, like a savage stray dog, are
abruptly dropped, and the witless Perfect Storm parody that opens things
up seems to exist merely because the tidal wave effects were still lying around
on the desktop of ILM's mainframe. On the other hand,
Jack Black does his characteristic scene-stealing (though this isn't a buddy
movie, as the ads imply -- his role is a supporting one) and a whole host of
other cameos from the likes of Harold Ramis to John
Lithgow liven things up. What's most astonishing is the degree to which Colin
Hanks resembles his dad, Tom, circa 1980; close your eyes and his whiny manner
and exasperated yelling sound like pitch-perfect duplicates. There's nary a
mention of