Review: Jake's Booty Call

National Lampoon Presents Jake's Booty Call (2003)
77 mins., R
Starring Julian Max Metter, Jay Lerner, Tony D., Billy Thames, Jake Smith, Tommy Chunn, Eric D. Eisner
Written and Directed by Julian Max Metter and Eric D. Eisner
Produced by Romp Films in association with National Lampoon
DVD released by National Lampoon and distributed by Arts Alliance America

To kick off my reviews of NatLamp stuff, I'm starting with their newest DVD release, also the first one they're releasing themselves.

National Lampoon Presents Jake's Booty Call is based on an internet game, Jake's Booty Call from the website The Romp, which was apparantly very succesful back in the early 2000's (I'd never heard of it until the movie). In the game, the player would help Jake, the ultimate pimp, hit on girls and get laid. The movie expands upon this idea by giving it an actual plot!

Hitting on ladies in a bar, Jake (Metter) needs a wing-man and chooses Siton Manoba (Lerner), a prince from the country of Bangasloid. Siton is here on a mission to loose his virginity before his father, King Slobon (Tony D.), makes him the new king. Jake takes Siton under his wing, and together, the two set off around the world in a quest to get Siton laid. But Siton's brother, Likapon (Lerner again) is determined to become king by killing his brother.

Jake's Booty Call was made in 2003, and for awhile, National Lampoon was touring with the movie, showing it at different colleges. Why did it take so long to arrive on DVD? Probably because it suffers from the same problem a lot of NatLamp movies do: it kinda sucks. The whole movie plays like a rejected Adult Swim cartoon, and even at 77 minutes, it feels too long and slow moving. The animation isn't that bad, especially the backgrounds, but the characters were obviously done on a computer. This is the first full-length movie made with Flash, and it shows.

Another problem is the character of Jake isn't really all that likable. I think it would have been a lot funnier if Jake was actually a loser who never got any women, instead of kind of a sleazeball who gets with most of the women he hits on. I think a lot of the humor is supposed to come from the fact that cartoon characters are saying and doing these things, but it's just not funny enough to rely on only that. When the funniest part of your movie is the characters names, you're in trouble.

The DVD is the first to be released by National Lampoon, and it's being distributed by Arts Alliance America. For special features, it has the widescreen version (I'm guessing 1.78:1); four deleted scenes (deleted for good reason); an animatics/final film comparison; a gallery of the girls in the movie, which looks like it was taken right off a computer and has text so tiny you can't read any of it; and an Easter Egg, which is just a song called "Jake's Back" played over a static screen. Hopefully, future releases have better features, although I'm not holding my breath.

Athough I did laugh out loud a few times, I can't really recommend this movie unless you're a die-hard fan of everything NatLamp, like me, or drunk/high/both. I'm guessing most of the people at those college screenings were, and that's why they found it so funny. Other than that, the best audience for this movie is 13-year-old boys, who'll think they're watching something really dirty!