It's a shame when an otherwise peaceful campus is overrun by the V-neck Gang.

Animal House it’s not.

Sure, there are some similarities to that older, better, frat comedy: Crude, immature but basically decent leads? Check. Scantily clad and/or gratuitously nude women? Check. Uptight, vindictive college dean with a grudge against our heroes? Check. But Animal House is a classic because it also has a fearlessly loopy and subversive sensibility that this film can only dream about.

Old School is about three friends. There’s Mitch, the nice guy; motor-mouthed Beanie, who can talk anybody into anything; and man-child Frank, a guy who runs screaming – and naked – from adult responsibility. After breaking up with his loose girlfriend, Mitch gets a great deal on a house near a college campus and from there, of course, the next logical step is for the guys to form a fraternity, with pledges ranging from actual college students to verging-on-middle-age guys like themselves, to an octogenarian named Blue.

Rigorous training for the next Girls Gone Wild video.

After that some stuff happens and some of it is funny. Scenes, gags and plot points click by like slides in a Viewmaster, each bearing little relationship to those that come before or after. Scenes feel strung together, written around a random collection of “shocking” situations that mostly come off as forced and curiously bland. I’m almost embarrassed to bust this movie for lack of plot, since I know that’s not really the point. But if your story is going to feel this slapped-together, your characters this sketchily drawn, then your movie had better be hi-LAR-ious, and Old School just isn’t. There’s a big belly laugh about every twenty minutes, and since the movie is a scant ninety minutes long that adds up to about four.

There’s some fun to be had with the talented cast. Vince Vaughn displays great comic timing as the relentlessly confident Beanie, and Will Ferrell has no compunction about shedding every scrap of dignity and clothing if it will get him a few more laughs as Frank the Tank. Jeremy Piven, who in any other movie would probably have the Vince Vaughn role, is cast against type here as the loathsome Dean Pritchard, and he pulls it off well. I was less impressed with Luke Wilson, whose Mitch is supposed to be laid-back but instead comes off as simply drowsy.

Overall, this movie just felt like it needed more . . . or less. Either make us care about the love story or leave it out. Either put some effort into the plot or don’t even pretend to have one. Most of all, if you’re going to throw random gags on the screen, make sure they’re funny; it’s the least you can do.

Gorilla Pants rating: 1 out of 4 bananas