ROAD TRIP

Cheerfully crude, well-cast and frequently uproarious campus comedy about three male students who travel cross-country to retrieve a sexually incriminating videotape. Directed by Todd Phillips.Running time: 91 minutes. Rated R. At the Empire, the Lincoln Square, the Murray Hill, others.’ROAD Trip” is this season’s slice of “American Pie” – a cheerfully crude, well-cast (and frequently uproarious) campus comedy in the tradition of “There’s Something About Mary.”

How crude? The movie’s most memorable scene involves a sperm bank nurse (Marla Scuharetza) who deploys a gloved finger so expertly that a grateful male character remarks, “That was … awesome.”

As anyone who’s seen the coming attractions knows, there is also a classic gross-out gag that should send French toast sales plummeting – and a mouse-eating scene.

Not to mention the white protagonists’ memorable visit to a black fraternity house – a neat twist on “Animal House,” another very major source of inspiration for first-time feature film director Todd Phillips, who helmed the award-winning documentary “Frat House.”

The action starts at Ithaca College, where Josh (Breckin Meyer of “54”) assumes his longtime, long-distance girlfriend, Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard), is cheating on him. Josh allows himself to be seduced by Beth (Amy Smart), who records their lovemaking on video.

Josh learns he was very mistaken about Tiffany’s fidelity – but not before his stoner roommate Rubin (Paul Costanzo) has accidentally mailed the incriminating videotape to her at her college in Austin, Texas.

So Josh sets out for Austin to retrieve the tape, accompanied by Rubin, party-hearty E.L. (Sean William Scott of “American Pie”) and the nerdy Kyle (big-eared D.J. Qualls, who’s virtually a walking sight gag), who’s along for the ride only because they’ve commandeered his car.

Along the way, the guys trash the car, steal a bus from a school for the blind, encounter a Viagra-crazed senior and Kyle’s angry dad (Fred Ward) – and, oh, Kyle is relieved of his virginity by a large coed.

Back in Ithaca, the boys’ buddy Barry (MTV’s Tom Green) is so obsessed with feeding a live mouse to Josh’s pet python that he sends poor Beth on a mistaken odyssey to Boston (instead of Austin), where she wreaks havoc on another Tiffany.

The borderline-obnoxious Green has a smaller role than the ads imply, and the movie is better for it.

Mostly he’s deployed as the demented on-screen narrator – who at one point defends the frequent toplessness of the female cast members.

“Road Trip” takes a well-traveled highway, but the drivers know exactly what they’re doing.