Review: 'Sorority Boys' a dopey drag

Everything you expect, and less

The three boys of "Sorority Boys": Michael Rosenbaum, Harland Williams, and Barry Watson

(CNN) -- Remember the first time you saw a TV commercial advertising "Sorority Boys," a new comedy in which three college buddies put on dresses and talk in high-pitched voices, then take up residence with a bunch of co-eds in a sorority house? In all likelihood, you froze with a potato chip halfway to your mouth and thought, "My God, that looks awful."

Well, you're right.

It's terrible, every bit as moronic and repetitive as you knew it would be. Screenwriters Joe Jarvis and Greg Coolidge were apparently aiming for some sort of homage to "Animal House"; a couple of that film's cast members even make cameo appearances in "Sorority Boys." Unfortunately, Jarvis and Coolidge lifted the campus setting, the stuffed bras, and the beer kegs, then made up their own jokes.

Lucky guys, unlucky audience

This film is not what you would call plot-heavy. Dave (Barry Watson), Doofer (Harland Williams), and Adam (Michael Rosenbaum) head the social committee for Kappa Omicron Kappa (KOK), the rowdiest, most openly sexist house on campus. For reasons that are best left unexplained -- since it doesn't make any difference -- the guys are blackmailed by the fraternity's nerdy president. He convinces everyone that Dave, Doofer, and Adam have stolen the frat's party money, so they get attacked and chased down the street by their former friends.

Having no cash and nowhere to turn, the guys then make the obvious move of dressing in drag and joining Delta Omicron Gamma (DOG), the feminist sorority across the street.

It's an understatement to say that our heroes are in luck. Although they look exactly like men wearing dresses and high heels, all the DOGs are convinced that they're women. (Had they put on saddles, they probably could have passed for horses and lived in a stable.) Since they're new to the sorority, they don't pay rent for a whole semester, and there's a room in the house that conveniently contains three beds and a closet full of perfectly fitting women's clothes that the previous tenants "left behind."

Meanwhile, Leah (Melissa Sagemiller), the beautiful DOG president who Dave starts to fall for, is so blind, she can repeatedly shower with him and never notice that he's not a she.

The rest of the story, if you can call it that, concerns the guys' fruitless attempts to enter their old frat house and steal an incriminating video tape that will enable them to once again join their friends in debauchery.

But wait! All this dressing up and living with girls has convinced them that they've been mistreating the opposite sex. That, however, doesn't stop director Wally Wolodarsky from mistreating them whenever he gets a chance.

A semblance of comedy

The DOGs are a crew of poor-self-image women suffering from theoretically hilarious maladies. Katie (Heather Matarazzo, who needs better roles than this) screams out her words and has a terribly grating laugh. Another sister sports manly facial hair and refuses to shave under her arms. There's also a menstruation joke to compliment the obligatory dried semen joke, in case you feel things are getting too refined.

The best that can be said is that the film is an equal opportunity offender: the KOKs are just as one-dimensional as the DOGs.

Watson and Williams hang in there, although no one will be forgetting Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in "Bosom Buddies," a half-hour sitcom that was more entertaining during its credit sequence than "Sorority Girls" is in 90 laborious minutes.

The only cast member who produces a semblance of comedy is Williams, who's probably best known for playing the psycho in "There's Something About Mary." At least his character's drunken stupidity seems truly unhinged, rather than deliberately simple-minded. Still, the laughs he generates are the humor equivalent of a low-grade fever. You might notice them, but it's not enough to make any difference.

If you want to save some money, just go to a theater, look at the "Sorority Boys" poster, and hoot while you wave a sex toy above your head. It's probably less humiliating, too.

"Sorority Boys" contains nudity, sex, drinking, pot smoking, pill-popping, and profanity. Surprise.