An imbecilic college-age caper film, ROUND TRIP TO HEAVEN melds the standard young-adult sex farce onto an innocents-on-the-lam adventure. As with others in this jock fantasy sub-genre, a luxury car figures as prominently in the plot as the requisite dream girl.
Shaking the coppers, a felon named Stoneface (Ray Sharkey) stashes his purloined loot in the trunk of a car that just happens to be maintenanced by Larry's (Corey Feldman) uncle's dealership. Tired of life as party animal Boingo the Clown, who entertains tots and dallies with their suburban
mothers, Larry decides to fix and borrow one of his uncle's Rolls-Royces. Persuading his cousin Steve (Zach Galligan) to join him on a wild weekend in Palm Springs, Larry is unaware that the Rolls contains a fortune in cash. While Larry dreams of super model April Summers (Rowanna Brewer), he
learns that his pal Lucille (Julie McCullough) has been selected for a modeling seminar hosted by Ms. Summers.
As the coincidences pile up in place of laughs, the cops tail Stoneface, who pursues the boys in a hijacked cab while the boys blissfully drive to Palm Springs in the borrowed Rolls. Having smooth-talked their way into jobs at a hotel, Steve discovers the moolah while Larry resumes his Boingo
character to perform at a surprise party for April. Although two bumbling cops try to entrap Stoneface by leading him to the boys' room, he eludes capture. With Stoneface closing in, Larry poses as a movie producer while Steve romances a Russian model. By the Keystone cops-style finale, the
ineffectual cops finally catch up to Stoneface as Steve discovers the joys of puppy love with the Russian, and Larry finally realizes that Lucille is the only babe for him.
Intent on titillating its youthful audience, ROUND TRIP TO HEAVEN only veers from the business of inducing leers long enough to dispense stale jokes and keep viewers awake with some cops-and-robbers car chases. While goosing the plot along artificially, it celebrates female pulchritude. When even
that grows tiresome, some forgettable song is tossed in. When that doesn't work, the idiot cops return to diminishing laughter. Yet all that camouflage can't disguise the fact that this is an adolescent wet dream. Gorgeous half-naked women interrupt enough of ROUND TRIP TO HEAVEN to satisfy its
target audience of horny college jocks.
Fortunately, Galligan and McCullough have natural charm, and a few supporting players rise above the general tedium. If, however, you find star Corey Feldman resistible to the degree that you would rather face atomic radiation than share a bomb shelter with him, avoid taking this direct-to-video
release. The sorry spectacle of watching this actor more suited to character roles once again preening as a handsome leading man makes one realize that egos in Hollywood have grown to frightening proportions. He has the irritating energy of the teenaged Mickey Rooney but without the saving grace
of any of Rooney's talent. (Some violence, profanity, nudity.) leave a comment
