Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

hellfire_30 I really don't know where to begin when describing a film of the calibur of Barely Legal(AKA After School Special). Describing it as a catalogue of errors does a dis-service to films that fall in that category - because usually although they failed spectacularly for various reasons, there's some evidence that they did so whilst trying to do something of note. You never really get the sense that anything was really attempted here.National Lampoon, apparently meant something in the field of comedy at one stage in time, but I can't help but feel that it's reputation and stock nowadays is somewhat diminished given this showing. Barely Legal tells the story of 3 teenage guys who are inept with the girls and perpetually short on cash. Reasoning that they need money to get girls in the first place, they come across the idea of making their own porn film (not exactly an original concept). As preposterous as that sounds it's little in comparison with the casting. As well as conforming to the usual rule of anyone under thirty five could play a teenager in a fictionalised high-school setting, the leads are a somewhat strange combination. Two of the key characters are your typical geeky looking guys who for all intents and purposes you could perhaps see being in similar circumstances in real life. The other is what can only be described as Calvin Cline model. Taller and older looking, his presence on screen with his two co-actors is as striking as a pensioner at a rave - and twice as embarrassingly uncomfortable. It's quite obvious he's the one going to be getting the most screen attention, and inevitably the girls. It's a rather cynical Hollywood convention that's sadly both predictable as it is shallow.The Worse is yet to come however - now I realise that woman in these sort of comedies don't often feature too prominently, marginalised often at best. But here the bar is very much raised in a way so distasteful that it's almost nauseating. Portrayed as unintelligent and personality-lacking is one thing, buts it's another to imply woman are simply a means to an end - one that I don't think needs elaborating. Add to this almost random flashes of nudity and you have the rotten cherry on top of a very putrid cake. I've really got to applaud the film in that regard though, if it can make a mostly apathetic laid back guy take up near feminist views on character portrayal, then it really must excel in it's field. But the biggest question of all - I found myself wondering; is who exactly is this film suppose to be aimed at? A juvenile story and overall stupidity would make you assume youngsters but with soft-core porn scenes, nudity and masturbation jokes you find yourself at a loss to it's target audience. If you really want a teen sex-based comedy then you have a whole list of better alternatives; Superbad, American Pie and Road Trip to name but a few - comedies that actually had some substance to them as well as being a lot more humorous. With those in mind this shouldn't even register a passing glance. Barely Legal was meant for no one it would seem, and conveniently enough that is exactly what I would recommend.

Polaris_DiB Gross-out comedy.Have you seen American Pie? Of course you have, everyone has. Have you seen National Lampoon's other stuff? Of course you have, everyone has. Have you seen Animal House? Of course--wait... wait... I caught a large portion of it on the television but I haven't seen all of it. Well that's okay, I got the point.Did you like those films? Well, whichever way you answer the above question will determine what your enjoyment of this film will be like. I myself don't really think those films are THAT BAD, they're just not THAT GOOD. That wonderfully politically correct way of saying that this film was pure fluff but I laughed anyway.Well I didn't necessarily laugh, but it was amusing. I think if it weren't for the fact that the father figure tries to pull a Eugene Levy, the stupid high school bully is trying to be a Stifler, and sometimes the characters seem to do things that not only don't fit with their character in the film, but don't match anything that happens in real life, this would be a pretty good movie.Even despite those details (which are actually minor in the way they were presented), the film does its job and does it right. The overall structure is clichéd, but mostly the tone isn't. Scenes like the porno actress having dinner with the family when the girlfriend walks in, or the fact that said girlfriend isn't what he's looking for in the first place, stuff like that is enough to relax and enjoy the film if you're willing to not worry too much about wasting your time.I would have to say that, if anything, the whole competitor storyline and all that Scarface stuff really got to me the most, considering I find the Scarface dream to be an utterly banal and hideous allusion for everyone to always make, and the competitor was just kind of stupid overall.--PolarisDiB

eyiinc Saw to movie in Europe very funny. Glad to see it's being released in the US. Expect fun, sexy humor along the lines of the first Duce Bigalo. It's filled with crude funny sex related humor. Go see it for what it is a funny laugh a minute movie. The cast in the movie works from Amy Smart to Vince Vieluf and Eric really make you laugh.I thought that they should have kept the original title. National Lampoon's Barely Legal. I think that title would draw more box office attention to the movie.There is a particularly funny part in the movie, with Vice Vieluf and a DDR game that made me chuckle. What I don't understand is why they took so long to release the movie in the US, after all it was made in 2003.

baconbit This was not a great film, but to call this a rip off of Porn 'n Chicken is just laughable. First off, NO ONE is going to rip off ANYTHING that Comedy Central does. Not if they want to be in show business much longer. (It would be kind of like the Yankees ripping off the Devil Rays.) Second, this was filmed BEFORE Porn 'N Chicken. Yes, this movie was bad. But so was Porn 'n Chicken. If you go into EITHER of these movies expecting to be entertained, then you have no one to blame but yourself.