Act One: A group of unpopular boys vow to become cool and/or sexually active before an arbitrary date.

Act Two: They throw a party when the parents are away. The party starts out fun but then abruptly goes sideways.

Act Three: Jaw-droppingly mild consequences and obvious psychosocial lessons all around.

Act Four: Profit.

You have seen every single part of this movie in other teen comedies. I’ll grant that the second act does offer amplitude where it cannot offer originality. I’ll even grant that the relationships between the protagonists are sort of sweet, in a ‘Superbad’ kind of way. The thing is, I can’t recommend the movie, because the only difference between this movie and a dozen others is that this one has a flamethrower. I’m not kidding. Dad’s car gets driven into the drink. The right girl was there all along. The overcompensating jerk has a tender side. The shy guy is awesome once he loosens up. Teenage girls hate wearing tops, and will take them off at the slightest provocation. Somehow no one goes to jail. It’s less of a movie than a montage of other, funnier movies.

The worst part of it all is that they follow the ‘found footage’ convention. The bulk of the movie is supposed to be footage shot by a shady AV nerd who tags along with the gang. Rather than commit to the conceit, though, the filmmakers lurch randomly from shaky-cam footage to standard Hollywood camera-work. They also drop liberally into music-video special effects whenever they want to remind you that parties are awesome.

Todd Phillips (‘The Hangover’) is an exec producer, and that gives you a lot of insight into how this film ended up in theaters. The fact that it’s out in February and not May should give some insight into how much Todd’s formula depends on the superhuman improv chops of actors like Galafinakas and Ferrell.

Of course, high school for me is a memory with seriously blurry edges, and I’m not the target demo for this movie. Maybe kids need to be reminded every few years that partying is fun and popularity comes from the inside, and maybe each generation needs a slew of their own movies to get that message. Maybe it’s fun for kids with real problems to watch rich kids create superfluous problems for themselves. I can’t answer that for you. You’ll have to find the answer within yourself.