OxfordPress.com

Grade: C+

Verdict: Not bad - especially if you dig Jack Black.

Details: Starring Colin Hanks and Jack Black. Directed by Jake Kasdan. Rated PG-13 for drug content, profanity and sexuality. One hour, 23 minutes.

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Review: "Orange County" is not a Jack Black movie. It just looks like one in the TV ads.

Almost every moment this inexplicably funny guy has in this end-of-high-school comedy has already been burned into the minds of young moviegoers through endless advertisements. They feature all his best lines, all his jumping in his underwear into a swimming pool, all his no-account older brother mumblings, all his tenacious delighting in everything having to do with sloth.

The one thing the ads don't do is show him throw up. He does do that in "Orange County." TV viewers should be thankful for small favors.

Black may be at the forefront of the selling of this movie, but the flick really is about Colin Hanks. As in Tom Hanks' son. He plays Shaun Brumder, who's not only the younger brother of Black's over-the-top, scene-stealing character, but a Southern California high school senior who desperately wants to get into Stanford University and become a writer.

Hanks is joined by co-star Schuyler Fisk (as in Sissy Spacek's daughter), who plays his girlfriend. Their director: Jake Kasdan (as in director Lawrence Kasdan's son).

There's more. Like Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, Harold Ramis, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Chevy Chase and Ben Stiller.

It's a well-staffed comedy with an often serviceable screenplay by Mike White ("Chuck and Buck" and the TV shows "Freaks and Geeks" and "Dawson's Creek").

"Orange County" speaks the language of mainstream kids. For instance, an English teacher asks a class, "When I say, 'Romeo and Juliet,' what name comes to mind?"

A student's sincere reply: "Claire Danes."

The thrust of the film is that - just as teens seem to feel in real life - every member of Shaun's family (including, of course, his divorced parents and their newfound mates), just about every friend he's got and just about everybody he comes in contact with is, well, certifiably insane.

His mom (O'Hara) is a blithering mess. Dad (Lithgow) hardly listens. And the adults at school? Tomlin, for instance, plays a counselor who gets college transcripts all mixed up.

This is a movie for every single high school senior in America who has just completed or is right now going through the process of applying to college. "Orange County" is mostly light, sometimes enjoyable and just crazy enough.

Plus, it has Jack Black.

— Bob Longino, (none)