Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
Cheryl (Jenna St. Claire) is a ditz… I mean she’s a blonde so there you go… Lexi (Lisa Younger) is a slut and Sue (Melissa Johnston) is a Jesus freak. Eighteen years from this coming Saturday these three disparate young women are having their birthday, as they were born in the same hospital, in the same ward, and have been friends since day one. Usually on their birthday they do something very special, but this birthday they’re going to do something super duper special, this special thing being that all three of them have come to the conclusion, in various ways, that they are going to lose their virginity… and we get to watch. Yay. The name of the movie is ‘Barely Legal’, and it’s one of those wacky sex comedies from The Asylum. I’ve seen a couple of these Asylum sex comedies and they’ve been funny. There were a couple of more I couldn’t make through so I disqualified myself from commenting on them. I made it through ‘Barely Legal’… but baby, it wasn’t easy.
The plan for these young ladies is to throw a blowout party and do what they have to do. Cheryl is love with Jake (Morgan Benoit) so her cherry popping procedure is ready already. Lexi has done everything imaginable under the sun with the sole exception of what most consider normal sex, so anybody walking by will do. Sue, of course, has some religious struggles to deal with considering the Good Book generally frowns on sex outside of the institution of marriage. But through a sign here and a nudge there, Sue has settled on the sexually suspect Chris (Wolfie Trausch) to carry her into womanhood.
With that out of the way, the party begins and it’s loaded with mayhem, zaniness and hijinks as our heroines find that losing their viriginities is a real challenge. Jake is too busy making out with the other party members, Lexi’s cooch has stopped working and Sue’s one true love seems to like boys. There’s also the blind guy hanging out not being funny, the pair of stoners hanging out not being funny, the tall redhead (Joy Amber Stevens) hanging out who’s plenty sexy, but not very funny and there’s even a touch of bestiality. I had to shut it down for minute and pick it up the next day after that, and I think I now have a second rule comedy. Chris’s First Rule of Comedy is that ‘Dookey
is Never Funny’. This movie doesn’t violate this rule and in relation to that, this movie also has no fart jokes. We appreciate this. But Chris’s brand new Second Rule of Comedy… ‘Bestiality is never funny’. If you happen to be a comedy screenwriter and you have a scene of bestiality in your movie… get it out. Substitute a fart joke if you have to, but get the animal love out. Just trying to help.
And
on it goes. Will our three
lovelies succeed in what should
be a phenomenally simple
plan? Far be it from me to
spoil it for you.
So with the other sex comedies I saw from The Asylum being ‘18 Year Old Virgin’ and ‘MILF’, and recognizing that neither movie was the second coming of ‘Animal House’ or anything, but they were offensively raunchy but also managed to be kind of funny on their path to offending anyone watching. Can’t be mad at that. Director Jose Monesinos with ‘Barely Legal’ had the raunch part down, but the comedy was sorely lacking. Completely absent. Nonexistent in this universe. Thus there we are sitting in the room, feeling like a perv because I’m watching a movie that has plenty of young ladies taking off their tops but not making me laugh. I believe that’s the business model for those Girls Gone Wild videos, which I have never seen, because I need some kind of justification for watching young women take their tops off, no matter how rudimentary this justification might be, and this movie was providing little of this necessary justification.
In fact, recognizing after about forty five minutes in that this movie was about as funny as it was going to get, the only reason I didn’t shut it off completely and move on with my day… and I’m not proud of this… is because actress Melissa Johnston hadn’t gotten naked yet. Like I said, I’m not proud of that. However if you’ve seen this movie you know full well the only reason you struggled with it till the end was to see what Mellissa Johnston was hiding under there. Yes, it’s outstanding, but it wasn’t funny, which I’m thinking was the ultimate point. Clever move from the filmmakers, because they aren’t stupid knowing full well that they had to do something to keep folks watching this mess, but it was a dirty move. Dirty, underhanded, scurrilous technique.
Whaddayagonnado? ‘Barely Legal’ was not a good movie. In fact, it was a terrible movie. Absolutely awful… but with tits. My recommendation is don’t even start it, because you’ll probably be forced to watch it until the end. Be better than that. Be better than me. I’m not proud of this.
