PCU

A hare-paced, harebrained and, for the most part, amusing update of "Animal House." [29 Apr 1994, p.03]

PCU is less a blatant ripoff of Animal House than a fond homage. This '90s update on campus life never reaches that landmark comedy's inspired heights (or depths, as it were) of anarchy. It also could use a waggle or two of John Belushi's bushily subversive eyebrows....But actor Hart Bochner's directing debut - aided by zippy camerawork - still offers a laugh-propelled good time while tweaking political correctness gone amok at Port Chester University (PCU). [29 Apr 1994, p.5D]

Political correctness is such a natural target for satire, it’s surprising that it has taken so long to hit the bigscreen. At the same time, given the issue’s extensive media coverage, it wouldn’t have been too much to expect PCU to cut with a sharper and nastier edge. Read full review

Good, amusing, disreputable fun—until it starts getting solemn and preachy. Read full review

The movie is afraid to be - yes - Politically Incorrect. It isn't really critical of anybody's behavior, and it sketches its campus fringe groups in broad, defanged generalizations. Beneath its facade of contemporary politics, it's another formula film in which the kids want to party and get drunk, and the adults are fuddy-duddies. Read full review

As funny as this movie sometimes is, it could've been much funnier, ironically enough, if it had taken itself more seriously. [29 Apr 1994, p.D34]

It's not much more than a collection of clever sight gags and one-liners that leaves the door wide open for another, better film about political correctness on the quad. [29 Apr 1994, p.D2]

The whole point of this anemic venture is to get down and party, but it comes across as a pale passe carbon of "Animal House" that's not half as much fun. Read full review

A spoof of "political correctness" on campus, PCU is a sanitized rip-off of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE that's neither smart enough to qualify as satire nor offensive enough to entertain. Read full review

The laughs are lame in this annoyingly outdated spoof of political correctness. [5 May 1994]

P.C.U. turns out to be a surprisingly lame and unfocused campus comedy, one that pays remarkably little attention to its own comic possibilities. Read full review

There's about one TV commercial's worth of funny gags in PCU a poorly executed one-joker about political correctness on campus...But any laughs quickly become redundant and wear thin, and the uselessly involved plot spirals off into absurdity. [29 Apr 1994, p.49]

A lobotomized campus comedy. [3 May 1994, p.E6]