With Orange County, the kids serve notice that they are ready to displace their parents as Hollywood movers and shakers, but if I were Tom Hanks, Lawrence Kasdan (director of The Big Chill among other things) or Sissy Spacek, I don't think I would be too worried just yet. Starring Hanks' son Colin, Spacek's daughter Schuyler Fisk, and directed by Kasdan's son Jake, Orange County is a mildly diverting teen comedy with a screenplay as conflicted as its lead character.

Shaun Brumder (Hanks) is a typical Orange County surfer dude, content to ride the waves and party hearty with his girlfriend Ashley (Fisk) until he reads a life-changing book. Profoundly affected by the ideas and sentiments expressed, he decides to become a writer. Despite being saddled with self-obsessed divorced parents (Catherine O'Hara and John Lithgow) and a drug-addled brother (the reliably John Belushi-like Jack Black) who routinely throws up on Shaun's short stories, Shaun pulls up his socks, becomes class president, writes constantly and applies to Stanford. Due to a foul-up, he is rejected. Can he rise above his dysfunctional family and surfer dude pals and come up with a scheme that will land him a place at the school?

Written by Mike White, who wrote and starred in that apotheosis of the cinema of embarrassment Chuck and Buck, Orange County wants to be at least three things at the same time. It grafts some of the kinds of scenes found in a typical gross-out teen comedy like American Pie (any scene involving Jack Black, urine or vomit) onto a much milder version of White's cinema of embarrassment and then mixes in a strong shot of inspirational coming-of-age schmaltz. The problem is that these varying aims clash rather than gel. For example, when Catherine O'Hara's drunken mother routine ruins one of Shaun's plans, the film has the chance to go to some painful places, but refuses to do so, playing everything for mild chuckles rather than anything more thought-provoking.

But, of course, this is basically just a teen comedy, albeit one with a number of engaging performances. Hanks is just geeky enough to be believable as the besieged Shuan, while Fisk is appropriately dreamy as the animal-obsessed Ashley. O'Hara and Lithgow are too over-the-top, although the king of over-the-top remains Black whose hit-and-miss style provides the majority of the humour-gross at it sometimes may be-found in the film. Sprinkled throughout are cameos from Chevy Chase, Lily Tomlin, Ben Stiller, Kevin Kline, Gary Marshall and others, most of which are neither memorable nor funny-they just are.

So Tom, Sissy and Lawrence need not worry about their respective positions in the Hollywood firmament, right? Well, perhaps a little-given that Orange County surprised everyone by grossing more than $15 million on its opening weekend, pride in their children's achievements might give way to a mild case of the jitters.