Up the Creek (1984)

The greatest movie ever!

Let's be realistic.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

When grouping movies like this together, a catch all like "'80s teen sex comedies" or "boob comedies" or "t'na flicks" is usually used. More often than not, they're labelled as comedies, which really seems to be more out of force of habit, or courtesy on behalf of the viewer, than anything else. I don't know how many times I've watched one of these movies, eg. Joysticks, Hot Moves, Getting It On, and have found myself hard pressed to identify a single moment that could be said to approach anything like humour. We assume they're comedies, I guess, because they're too dumb to be anything else, or, what is more likely, they're carbon copies of other movies - Animal House, Porky's, Police Academy - that actually were, indisputably, supposed to be funny, whether they were or not.Up the Creek is an exception to this rule. It actually has jokes, and I even laughed a few times! That is so rare I can't even tell you. It has the problem a lot of these boob comedies/t'na flicks have, which is that the premise of the movie doesn't actually leave much room for sex or nudity. That's the main reason we watch them, right? In this one the typical miss-matched group of losers is pitted against the also typical blonde upperclassmen (why must they always be blonde?) for a race down a river. There's the main guy, who smokes thin cigars for no discernible reason, and in some shots looks almost exactly like Paul Rudd. There's also (of course) the nerd, and the main guy from Porky's, who I always despised, but he doesn't do much here to make you hate him one way or the other. I would have preferred if they didn't rely on (yet another) stock character to round out the bunch: the fat guy who can't stop eating. At least he isn't repulsive like the one in Joysticks, but come on. Was this ever funny to anyone?The upperclassmen - all four of them blonde - try to cheat using high tech (for the time) gadgets like exploding darts and remote controlled airplanes that shoot torpedoes. They have the blessing of an older, rich man who (of course) wears his jumper (sorry, "sweater") tied around his neck.There is also another group of kooky competitors who are in the movie for comic relief: army men with an over eager commanding officer who also like to blow stuff up. They aren't really differentiated from the rich guys in so doing.In the end, what you have is a comedy which isn't funny enough to be watched on that merit alone, and doesn't have enough boobs to be worthwhile for anyone else, but at least I laughed a few times, rather than retching horribly as I did with Joysticks.

A year following this frolicking party film, Tim Matheson would ask Chevy Chase to kill him in FLETCH. Chase was supposed to play the role of OTTER in ANIMAL HOUSE (before John Landis objected, not wanting his film to be a SNL skit), a role that made Matheson, a former child actor who was growing into various filler roles (like MAGNUM FORCE), famous. In FLETCH, Matheson is in his forties, a dapper businessman. Here he's a college student, and actually looks much younger than in FLETCH but way too old to be a student. He's one of four slackers stuck in a purgatory college sent on a river rafting race, a win garnering them not only free degrees but a chance to defeat the bad guys: a quartet of perfect looking blonde dudes.Here we have a wacky adventure that spends the first half partying on land and the second half partying downstream. It's splendidly vapid entertainment from start to finish, providing terrific action shots along the roaring rapids. Stephen Furst, another ANIMAL HOUSE alumni, flounders as a fat guy who likes to eat. Dan Monahan ("Pee Wee" of PORKY'S fame) is included but adds little more than a smiling face to the mindless goings-ons throughout. And Jennifer Runyan is fitfully pouty and pretty as Matheson's conquest.

Sometimes the planets align and everything just comes together. Some likable but underused actors join up with a veteran (and really really old) director to film a script written by the author of some minor league films. This is the sort of recipe that more often than not ends up with a mediocre movie that is instantly forgettable but for whatever reasons They ended up producing one of the funniest teen comedies ever made.A group of loser college students played by an all star collection of teen sex comedy stars including Tim Matheson and Stephen Furst from Animal House, Dan Monahan from Porky's and Sandy Helberg from History of the World Part 1 who,having their arms twisted by a corrupt Dean played by John Hillerman, agree to enter a dangerous raft race with the promise that victory will bring them un-earned degrees.Excessive drinking, fart jokes and gratuitous nudity are just some of the pleasures that this movie provides for the viewer. It also features the smartest dog in the world (he does charades), a kick ass song by Cheap Trick and the gorgeous Jennifer Runyon (ghostbusters & Charles in charge, I don't know which credit is more impressive) along with some great race footage and hilarious dialog. This movie is simply much better than it has the right to be.All the people who complain that it is stupid miss the point. Of course it is stupid. Its moronic. Its dumb as dirt. It is also hysterically funny from start to finish. This movie reminds me in many ways of Weekend at Bernies another incredibly goofy movie that if approached in the wrong mood is virtually unwatchable. To avoid injury try not to think. Just sit back and let this movie wash over you.

This is a story about students who were bottom of the league on every event that the college took part in.It shows of the challenge four students who were under achievers within the college, being put into a raft race to try and break the trend set by previous years. It also shows the lengths each of the other colleges would go to to win the raft race, with rockets and bombs and the course of the river being altered.It is a comedy you would like to watch again and again. The characters are portrayed well by the actors, and the story involved can show some of the everyday events that can happen in any rivalry situation.