College Road Trip (2008)

Wonderful character development!

Just what I expected

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Martin Lawrence and Raven Samone have fun making a movie while we suffer in College Road trip.Watching College road trip will leave you asking yourself many questions.Are teenagers really that retarded?What the hell is Donnie Osmond doing in this movie?What is happening to the world?College road trip is a family comedy,of course.Are those usually good? Rarely anymore. But College road trip isn't like any other family comedy. It's worse. I maybe laughed five times throughout this movie.Martin Lawrence plays an overprotective cop/dad. When his daughter Melanie(played by Raven Samone) is going off to Georgetown University,which destroys the plan that he had for her. So when she goes to Washington D.C. for a meeting, her dad decides to go with her. Which leads to a hell of a lot of clichés.The predictability of this movie is disgusting. The lack of laughs is also.The cheesiness and the poor dialogue is also. And the lack of fun involved is sad. Martin Lawrence is always likable,and so is Raven Samone. But stooping to this level of Disney comedy is sad. There are very few enjoyable scenes in this movie.One is when they are in a car with Donnie Osmond and they sing a lot. This is a movie that makes teenage girls look like stupid bimbos.I know it's a family comedy,but that is no point to make a movie so bad. I don't hate this movie. I loathe it.College Road trip: D+

"Melanie Porter" (Raven-Symone) has finally come to lock horns with her father (Martin Lawrence) after growing up as "Daddy's Little Girl." She wants to go to Georgetown University, but he is way too over-protective, and demands that she Northwestern University, which is less than 30-minutes from the family home.She plans a college road trip with two friends (Brenda Song and Margo Harshman), but good old daddy has plans for him to take her on the trip himself.Everything goes wrong for "Melanie" on the trip, which includes her father recruiting fellow police officers to stage an outrageous scene to get her to go to Northwestern to her brainiac brother (Eshaya Draper), stowing away with the family pig in their father's police vehicle.Now, the foursome have to get to Georgetown before "Melanie's" dreams come crashing to the ground.I have to say this is one of the most predictable movies I've seen in some time. You knew during the opening credits that there was going to be comedic bumps in the proverbial road, with the two main characters fighting all the way until they bond again at the end of the film.I wasn't too impressed with the humor. Again, due to the predictability of the movie. I probably laughed six times the entire movie. Most of the jokes you've seen in other movies, and are done better in those movies. The gags were not set up well if you ask me, and you knew the punchline was coming just as the comedic scenes were starting.I also did not like the performances of Donny Osmond and his on-screen daughter played by Molly Ephraim. There is such a thing as being too over-the-top, and they were. Personally, I don't think either were happy with their roles, as, to me, they seemed to have forced their performances a bit too much.On the other hand, Martin and Raven-Symone were pretty good together, and did a fairly good job at being a comedy team -- with her being the "straight man" to Martin as the comic. I've flipped passed Raven-Symone's TV series when they are in the middle of a comedic moment. In the show, she seems to be forcing herself at the comedy. Here, she was more comfortable.The supporting cast was completely under used. It seemed to me that characters showed up when needed in the script. There was very little character development in these characters beyond of being told who they were, and how they related to the main characters. Mostly, the supporting cast were either used in comedic scenes, or to set up plot twists.As for the soundtrack, it's mostly well-known tunes heard for decades, sometimes in other movies and television shows. There isn't any of the major names from Disney like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus on the soundtrack. It's the original artists you hear like the Jackson 5. You also only get one original song in the movie, sung on-screen by Raven-Symone in a funny moment on a tour bus filled with karaoke-singing Japanese tourists. The song itself was upbeat, and is easy to dance to, but you won't be singing it for weeks after.I couldn't really get into this movie, thanks to it being so predictable. However, there are a few good laughs and pretty good performances from Raven-Symone and Martin which barely carry the movie. I would have to say save this one for a rainy day when there is nothing else on.

Lighten up people!! I just don't get the harsh criticisms this movie is receiving. I believe this one was a family movie in the truest sense; no profanity, violence, etc.I believe if the kids were to rate this one they would give it 10/10, after all I imagine it was geared toward that particular audience. It was both funny & entertaining and the acting was fine, at least fine enough for the children.Please do not under-rate a movie because of your dislike for a particular actor.Wonderful movie!!!

Once again, Raven Symone plays the bright know it all teenager. And Martin Lawrence plays the wacky dad that gets into crazy situations in this movie. They put the pig in the movie for extra comedy. Kym Whitley actually cried in this movie! She is goofy in everything that she ever played in. And Kelly Cofield from In Living Color made a cameo as the dorm mother in the sorority house. She is the same wacky person in every movie that she's in! If you saw this movie in theaters, you missed a lot of great deleted scenes. This movie was corny just like most other Disney movies. And it had a fairy tale ending. I like how Donny Osmond's character stopped being so perky at the end of the movie when his daughter said that she was engaged!