Comedy 'Sex Drive' is more talk than action

Three things and three things only keep "Sex Drive" from being teen-comedy landfill. The first is James Marsden, hilarious as the hero's bully-boy big brother. The second is Seth Green, beyond droll as an Amishman with attitude. The third is the Mexican doughnut costume.

You take what you can get.

In almost all other respects, this hormonal, everybody-must-get-laid farce aims for Judd Apatow territory but lands somewhere between 2000's "Road Trip" and a lesser Cinemax offering from 1987. Josh Zuckerman plays Ian, a winsomely nerdy high school senior who has never scored, mostly because he carries a torch for his longtime BFFL, Felicia (Amanda Crew), a mordant sorta-goth girl.

An online flirtation with somebody named Ms. Tasty leads Ian on a road trip from Chicago to Knoxville, driving his brother Rex's prize GTO toward promised devirginization. Along for the ride are Felicia and Lance (Clark Duke), the required wild-guy best pal; there are stops for carnivals, drag races, cheap sex, true love, and jail. Half of the goings-on end up on YouTube; one of the better jokes here is that everyone is kept busy uploading videos of everyone else.

Still, those of us with long memories - not the target audience - will recognize the set-up as essentially cribbed from 1985's "The Sure Thing," and Lance as a descendant of the great, shambling Curtis Armstrong in '80s comedies like "Risky Business" and "Better Off Dead."

I know Curtis Armstrong. Curtis Armstrong is my friend. Clark Duke, you are no Curtis Armstrong.

Instead, the movie is stolen by Marsden ("Enchanted," "Hairspray") as Rex, a preening hothead who's all motormouth id. When he's off-screen and the heroes are stranded in Amish country, Green steps in as Ezekiel, automotive expert and purveyor of drop-dead sarcasm. The scenes in which Amish youth embark on a rumspringa not terribly far removed from a Roman orgy is the movie's funniest and most original touch.

What will become of Ian and Felicia in this raunchy, high-spirited, but fundamentally tame R-rated comedy? Any teenager worth his fake ID will see it coming a mile away. "Sex Drive" wants desperately to be dirty as hell, but its leads are generic and the carnal comedy is unthreatening despite all the trash talk. The movie's a working definition of "safe sex."

Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.