Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures [Click to enlarge]

Some fathers will do anything to keep their daughters at bay. However, when it comes to leaving home for college, some will go to great lengths to keep their daughters safe.

James Porter (Martin Lawrence) does crazy things to try to keep his daughter Melanie (Raven-Symone) close to home. He concocts schemes and sneaks around to make sure Melanie is safe. For instance, he takes Melanie on a tour of Northwestern, a nearby campus and has people fake injuries that were supposedly caused by going to Georgetown.

On their road trip to Georgetown, they run into a series of troubles. Their navigator breaks, their car flips over and they find Melanie's little genius brother Trey in the trunk with his pet pig.

After leaving their car, the family decides to stay at a nearby hotel where James throws away coffee beans because he believes "caffeine is a drug." Unfortunately, the pet pig named Albert didn't and eats the coffee beans.

Albert goes wild and somehow jumps out of the hotel window, lands on a tent where a wedding reception was being held and ruins it.

Later, Melanie meets with her friends and spends the night at her friend's sister's sorority house. Of course, James is insecure about Melanie being off on her own so he sneaks in to see what she's up to.

The Porters go through a progression of learning to trust and learning to let go. Many fathers could probably relate to James' situation.

However, there was too much over-exaggerating from Raven-Symone. Is it possible for her to ever lose her Raven act? Martin Lawrence, once again, acted the same way he does in every movie - lots of facial expressions. The movie was unsurprisingly predictable. The trailer alone will tell you exactly how the movie will end. Actually, the trailer has all the best movie scenes.

The ending of the movie was a bit prolonged. It was probably meant to be a tearjerker but leaves you asking, "Is it over yet?"

It got annoying at times because Melanie and her friends were screaming every time they saw each other. Martin Lawrence went a little too psycho - I'm not sure if he'll ever get out of that role. Donny Osmond, who plays Doug, and Molly Ephraim, who plays his daughter Wendy, wouldn't shut up! They sang in every scene they were in. It was incredibly irritating.

"College Road Trip" is rated G. Parents of Raven fans will probably get stuck watching this movie at the theaters although it seems like something that will come out on the Disney channel in a few months. It was more like a TV movie rather than a big-screen one.

Typhani Yang can be reached tyang@statehornet.com

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