"Without a Paddle" wears out its welcome

ONE OF MY all-time favorite movies is "City Slickers", that tale of middle-aged doldrums interrupted, heightened, and clarified with a raw encounter with nature. When Daniel Stern yells "You are a sporting goods salesman!" and Bruno Kirby shakes his head and says "Not today," I'm reminded of how our most true, most alive self is given so few opportunities to take center stage. We fear those gut-check moments, but without then we don't know what we're made of.

From the previews, "Without a Paddle" looked to be in the same vein, as three childhood friends embark on a journey into nature and get taught by a grizzled old man about what direction their life should take. And for the first twenty minutes of the movie, I was convince that this was my generation's "City Slickers." We're the Star Wars crowd, the Indiana Jones set, the Ghostbusters generation and "Without a Paddle" plays perfectly into those defining childhood passions. Even grown up, we can't resist a good C-3PO impression or imagining a trip through the woods being a slo-mo version of a speeder-bike chase. The movie plays heavily to our nostalgic past to create a real bond these characters who are heading on an adventure that makes them an Indiana Jones for real.

After opening with a touch of "Stand By Me" with four childhood buddies in a treehouse and then a dab of "The Big Chill" when one of the friends dies and the other three reunite for his funeral, the movie shifts gears to become a river-rafting treasure hunt -- looking for the stolen money that D.B. Cooper escaped with. It's here where things begin to go wrong. And I don't mean just for the characters.

The movie begins to suffer from a severe overload of the ridiculous. The angry bear is OK, the plunge down a waterfall is sensible enough, but once we get to two militant pot-farmers who have more ammo than Rambo and the aim of a Stormtrooper (note my cool '80s references), I just stopped caring. It wasn't the least bit plausible. It wasn't man vs. nature, it was man vs. desperate screenwriter, throwing half-baked ideas against the screen and seeing what will stick. I stopped caring; whatever danger was coming next was bound to be over the top and yet completely harmless to our heroes. I was just numb. By the time Burt Reynolds shows up as a crazy mountain man, and Seth Green delivers a line straight from "City Slickers" ("If you're going to kill us, just do it now and get it over with"), I felt just as impatient for the movie to end one way or the other.

In the end, the nostalgia trip seemed calculated, a deliberate play to movie geeks to lure them in. But the distinctive '80s reference have no relation to the story beyond a few one-liners. Instead of drawing courage or inspiration from the tales of their youth, the best they can manage is to voice their complaining in the familiar whine of C-3PO.