Again in a lame attempt to generate a few laughs from the college going adolescent Hollywood dishes out ’’Not Another Teen Movie’’. Using a much cliched theme of ridiculous situations this pot pourri of spoofs on spoofs fails to deliver the laughs it intends. If you have seen any of the following movies, this teen flick will make some sense to you:
She’s All That.
Scary Movie.
Cruel Intentions 2.
American Pie.
Road Trip.
American Beauty.
Varsity Blues.
Jaw Breakers.
Can’t Hardly Wait.
Bring it on.
I might have missed a couple - but in essence - here’s the long and short of it. Not another Teen movie is aimed at exposing the current teen movie cliche dominating the big screen - but ends up being a very poorly made teen movie itself! Starting with a not so pleasant intro of the central character Jamie (who, by the way, is supposed to be a complete dork) - enjoying herself (will skip the gory details to stay respectable) - a la Jason Biggs (vis a vis American Pie) - and ironically enough she’s watching a scene from the movie ’’She’s All That’’. After this ridiculous opening sequence, comes a familiar scene - yes the same lame theme from She’s All That - cool dude in high school makes a bet with his buddies to take the nerdiest girl to the prom. Interspersed in the movie are ill-timed comical breaks. Here are a few I can recall:
First off there’s the disgruntled cheerleader who’s eyeing the big prize(mr cool dude) but is having a hard time getting upstaged by a geek(an unimpressive rip off from Bring it on). Then there’s the very hormonal and incestuous sister of the cool dude(a cruel stab at Cruel Intentions 2 - only a lot more disgusting). Then you’ve got nerdy Jamie’s equally nerdy brother who has a crush on a super hot chick (adapted from Can’t Hardly Wait - there is a very exaggerated scene here where the super hot chick enters a party - and everything freezes - while the girl is involved in some moments of pure narcissist bliss - I’d have to admit that was a little funny). Another ridiculous part is the football game where Mr cool dude, the ’’star quarterback’’ of the school team(but who, for some mysterious reason cannot make the simplest pass to save his life) is getting hammered on by an unforgiving coach with a colorful vocabulary. Adding to the pseudo slapstick mess are a few jokes involving racial discrimination(the token black guy at an all white party). In a very coarse attempt to derive from the overtly sexual humor that characterized American Pie, Cruel Intentions 2 and Scary Movie, this movie goes one step further and takes the viewer through some utterly deplorable and explicit smutty scenes, the details of which are not worthy of commenting on much less describing. UGH. By about half the movie, if you hadnt turned off your TV sets - you were probably really desperate for some entertainment. In the unlikely event that you are willing to place your grey cells on hold (or a more likely scenario where you are reasonably inebriated) you might manage a few chuckles at the sheer extremeties of complete nonsense being dished out at you. For those of you who haven’t seen the movies that are being spoofed, God help you. I’ll be damned if you can make any sense of this movie.
Having said all the above though, I would like to say that surprisingly enough there is one thing about this movie that is quite a treat. The soundtrack. Just about every tune in the soundtrack is a modern day cover of an 80’s hit. The super popular German hit 99 Luftballons by Nena is covered by a band called Goldfinger - and this alternative heavy metal version will catch the attention of any headbanger out there. Then you have Blue Monday by Helmet covered by a band called Orgy. Tainted Love by Soft Cell is covered by Mr. Superfreak Marilyn Manson. If there’s one thing I would suggest in favor of this sorry excuse for a movie, it would be to go get the soundtrack from a music store. I gave this movie 2 stars because:
a. I needed to give it at least one star for having a beginning and an ending.
b. The second star was for the soundtrack - the only saving grace.
Unless you are hell bent on totally wasting your time in front of the boob tube - I’d give this movie a big thumbs down.