IT WOULD be hard to imagine how Fight Club could be turned into a frat movie but director Todd Phillips has sunk to the occasion.

Old School borrows heavily and self-consciously from David Fincher's movie, with several scenes leaving the viewer in no doubt that this is supposed to be a clever and funny alternative look at how men can tackle feelings of being disenfranchised. But it's not.

It's just a boring story that had writers who decided to rip off a superior story-line rather than coming up with one of their own.

The Fight Club revisited scenes include an orchestrated basement brawl in which semi-naked wrestling replaces fist fights, Beanie's rallying speech to the would-be frat brothers and an incident in a caf where the proprietor refuses to accept Mitch's money as he is 'The Godfather'.

And obviously, there's the whole 'club for disenfranchised men to help them regain a sense of power' thing too.

The feeling that we've seen all this before is compounded by the fact that the story that has been pasted onto the Fight Club structure is an average teen movie, with men in their thirties replacing teenagers.

And what exactly is going on here with men retreating from the adult world in favour of living like students again anyway?

Having a bit of a crisis about hitting your thirties is pretty normal, but the fantasy of behaviourally regressing ten years as a way to deal with it is worrying to say the least.

One suspects that Todd Phillips, whose small body of work also includes Road Trip and Frat House, has some issues he needs to deal with - in private.

This film doesn't work as an escapist fantasy for thirty-somethings who are having issues with getting older, as the set up is too preposterous, or a celebratory reminder that being 30 has advantages over being 18.

That's not to say that this film is all bad. It has some good moments which are largely down to Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughan, who are both far too good for this film.

Both actors are charismatic, charming and infinitely watchable and are jointly responsible for making this film bearable to sit through.

And the film has a few funny set pieces that will make you giggle, including a sequence which sees a naked Frank interrupt a Snoop Doggy Dogg performance before inviting him to streak.

But ultimately, Todd Phillips needs to think about leaving teen flicks to teenagers and looking for a decent script rather than a few cheap laughs.

Rating: 3/10