Foreign Exchange (2008)

Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

Why so much hype?

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

There's no shortage of teen comedies out there to choose from, too many in fact. Despite the occasional gem, this genre is renowned for mass producing crap. Movies like 'Foreign Exchange' are exactly why teen movies in general have such a bad reputation. It plays up to each and every negative stereotype of the genre.This is basically just a bad rip-off of 2007's 'Superbad'. Its attempts at humour are much the same, only 'Foreign Exchange' lacks the characters and wit to pull most of the jokes off. The failed humour combined with the predictably crap and wafer thin plot make 'Foreign Exchange' another cheap teen comedy to avoid.

"Foreign Exchange" (2008) is a high school comedy in the manner of 1999's "American Pie," but with a lower budget. I'm not a fan of "American Pie" or 2001's "Not Another Teen Movie" simply because they're too raunchy for my tastes; but that's just me. "Foreign Exchange" has quite a bit of raunch too and, in fact, begins with a scene of a teen masturbating in bed, but it's arguably not as bad as those other movies on this front.While all these films exaggerate the teen years for comedic purposes, do they - generally speaking - reflect real life? The answer is yes, which is WHY they're funny. For instance, do many teen dudes masturbate in bed to a photo of a babe? Of course. Now, this isn't likely something you want to SEE, but the film's making light of those fun-but-awkward teen years. Furthermore, despite a brief scene of three girls flashing their breasts, the sleaze is all talk or, at best, implied. And isn't that also the way it is in high school, except for the neighborhood Fonz (i.e ultra-cool guy who gets all the babes)? Jay (Randy Wayne) fits this description in the film and, less so, Shantz (Daniel Booko). And then there's the hardaxx principal of the school. I had one of those - a former Marine who always rolled his short sleeves up to show off his muscles & Marine Corps Emblem tattoo - albeit in the movie it's a woman, Jennifer Coolidge, and she's genuinely funny. And then there's the stoner smart kid, Hashbrown (Miles Thompson) and quite a few pot-smoking scenes. Again, these things reflect the real-life high school years.While "Foreign Exchange" is clearly low-budget it's also obvious that the filmmakers took care to create memorable characters with excellent casting. The film also does well on the female front with precious Vanessa Lengies as Robyn leading the way. I say "precious" because she's a hugely likable character that you care about, like Dave does (Ryan Pinkston), particularly as the story develops. Ashley Edner is also on hand as the beautiful Jez. Tania Raymonde as Anita, the Brazilian exchange student, is the main female protagonist, along with Robyn, but she's too thin to trip my trigger. I also like the way the shining Asian girl, Mia Ho (Jessika Van), ultimately finds companionship despite being made out to be discard-able. It's elements like this that reveal the movie's warmth below the raunchy garnish. The second half starts to mark time, however, so I can't give it a higher rating.The film runs 85 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles.GRADE: B-

This movie was decent. I wouldn't watch it again, but to pass time it's cool. There was some really corny stuff in which it was actually HARD to watch without wanting to mute, but I got through it.It's a pretty typical movie, but it was fairly entertaining. But like others said, very typical. (spoiler coming up) The "playa" ends up with the girl hating on him and the shy dude gets the girl.I might have laughed a few times, can't really remember that. But I did smile.I like high school setting movies revolving around friends. So I liked it for that matter, but nothing stood out really. I think the idea was cool "exchange students", just it wasn't a good "comedy", "romance", "drama" or what ever genre the movie was attempting to be. It wasn't bad, just not good.

There was nothing good about this movie. It was another teen comedy trying to follow the success of American Pie. The characters were unlikeable, the humor was useless, and story and situations weren't entertaining for even a moment.The premise is that several high school students are getting foreign exchange students to live with them.I can't even finish this review. It was just so dumb and pointless. The cover of the DVD markets the movie as a hard-R sex comedy, but everyone who watches this will be disappointed. There is one scene where Clint Howard plays a park ranger who catches two of the kids hunting without a license and we find out the ranger had a very unusual connection with one boy's dad. That's the only thing I am going to bother writing down about the story. Total waste of time.