A surprisingly funny teen sex comedy, ?Eurotrip? (the latest from the team that brought us ?Road Trip? and ?Old School?) narrowly surpasses the majority of quirky, dumbed-down schlock-shock comedies spawned by ?American Pie? and ?There?s Something About Mary.?

The premise is simple and extremely similar to ?Road Trip?s? quest for love and adventure.

We start out with recent high school grad Scotty as he loses his unfaithful girlfriend to a punked-out Matt Damon. Adding to Scotty?s angst is his mistaking a long-time German e-mail pen pal Mieke for a dude. When she blocks his e-mails, Scotty is forced (with severe harassment from his best bud/bad influence Cooper) to trek across Europe and win Mieke?s love.

Three former ?Seinfeld? writers supply ?Eurotrip? with raunchy fun and avoid any mean-spirited cuts. The script is loaded with as much smarts as stupidity and doesn?t get stuck in scatology or excessive bodily fluid.

A slew of basically unknown teens help to keep the film fresh. Michelle Trachtenberg as Jenny, one-half of ?the worst twins ever,? is famous for her three-year tenure on TV?s ?Buffy the Vampire Slayer.? In ?Eurotrip,? she only looks slightly older than she did as Buffy?s kid sister Dawn. Look for her in Gregg Araki?s (one of the freakiest, cooler than cool directors around) upcoming ?Mysterious Skin.?

Cooper is played by Jacob Pitts, who appeared in the painfully lame ?K-19: Widowmaker,? and the rest of the cast have handled assorted TV roles. But they are obviously enjoying themselves, and it rubs off on the audience.

Alongside Matt Damon, ?Eurotrip? plays host to multiple cameos. Lucy Lawless as a Dutch dominatrix and ?Lock Stock…?/?Snatch? star Vinnie Jones as an insane Manchester United fan, pump out some enjoyable scenes, one of which involves the most dangerous-looking, automated sex toy ever. And ?Saturday Night Live?s? Fred Armisen pops up (for a little too long) as a touchy-feely Italian.

After meeting up with the twins, Jamie and Jenny (Travis Wester and Trachtenberg), the group bounces around Europe in a haphazard tangle of hitchhiking, clubbing and excessive alcohol consumption. As the twins demonstrate why Absinthe is illegal in the States and excitement over a nude beach yields only a sea of ugly and naked male tourists, something resembling cinematic soul actually shins through.

It is only during the extremely lame, recurring ?Robot Battle? scenes and a few other select moments that ?Eurotrip? fails to deliver, but these are quickly overshadowed.

Rastafarian cafés in Amsterdam, the ghetto-fied landscapes of Eastern Europe and a little kid playing Hitler all add to the insanity.

And if you allow yourself to ignore reality for a while, the film?s finale, a hilarious rampage through the Vatican, plays like the best National Lampoon had to offer in the 70s. The smooth sounds of David Hasselhoff even lend a hand in the gut-busting.

For a movie filled with implausible absurdity and dozens of skin shots, ?Eurotrip? has enough heart to make it entirely worthwhile.

Grade: B