If you like your comedy to be juvenile and based around teenage angst, then look no further than Sex Drive.

This inferior pseudo frat-comedy is in the same vein as the modern fratcom sub-genre giants American Pie and Superbad, which themselves hark back to 80s’ fare like Animal House and Bachelor Party.

Rumours of this being the genre flick of the decade prove to be unfounded. It is little more than a series of regurgitated jokes and scenarios lifted by some amusing performances.

The film’s premise is all in the title, which alludes not only to teenage lads’ preoccupation with sex but also to an actual car journey for – you’ve guessed it – sex. Ian (Josh Zuckerman) takes his bullying older brother Rex’s (James Marsden) prized car on an eight-hour drive to visit a girl he met on the Internet and who has promised to sleep with him.

Oh, and of course best friends Lance (Clark Duke) and Felicia (Amanda Crew) come along for the ride.

Sex Drive is intermittently amusing, with a couple of big belly laughs. It’s also coarse at times and sweet at others.

But it’s just not consistent or original enough to be labelled a classic of the genre, if such a term even exists.

The majority of the humour stems from James Marsden, whose character is clearly based on Stifler from American Pie, and he proves himself to be funnier and much less annoying.

Seth Green as the sarcastic Amish Ezekiel is an important and welcome addition to the cast – his presence elevates the film immeasurably. Clark Duke is well cast as Ian’s unfeasibly successful-with-women wing man while Amanda Crew, who plays Felicia, is favourably reminiscent of 80s’ icons Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy rolled into one.

The odd bit-part, notably the cop who mistakes Ian, who is dressed in a doughnut costume, for a Mexican guy, adds some richness to the comedy.

Where American Pie was outmodedly shocking and distasteful in its attitudes to women, Sex Drive is definitely tamer and less misogynistic, partly because it ridicules teenage boys more readily. However, this helps to make it the underwhelming addition to the genre that it is.

You won’t take to this in the same way that you took to American Pie, which is singularly responsible for regenerating this particular brand of frat-style comedy but it will give you some laughs, providing you are not looking for something groundbreaking, outrageous, or indeed, uproarious. 

Despite stand-out performances from Marsden and Green (who are both, frankly, better than this), Sex Drive is ultimately lacking.

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