80's Movies Are Back!

by Jason R. Hewlett

It was bound to happen. You could see it coming when movies like "Scream" started taking-off again and retro cloths began popping up everywhere. What's old is new again so it was only inevitable that the teen movies like "Pretty In Pink" and "The Breakfast Club" would make a comeback as well and the first one out the gate is "She's All That." It appears that there's an audience too as the movie opened at number one this week and the showing I went to was packed. Mind you, "The Waterboy" was big so who knows right?

However, I may sound too much like I'm bagging the film right out the gate which would wrong as it isn't that bad a flick. It's just amusing seeing this trend but we're talking trends, we're talking movies. "She's All That" is definitely a teen movie. R. Lee Freming Jr.'s screenplay isn't very high on originality. It's basically a revamped version of "Pygmalion" where a cool guy (played by Freddie Prinzie Jr.) turns so called"ugly duckling" (played by Rachael Leigh Cook) into a prom queen. That's the basic premise but what makes it work is that, despite an overabundance of hip dialogue (the term "wiggin' is thrown around like so much lose change) and the fact that most of the actors look like they've been out of high school for awhile, the film as a fair degree of wit to it. Most of this credit would go to the film's director, Robert Isgrove. A tattoo artist's sign reads "Leonard's Skin Art" (a play on "Lynard Skynard") and we see the actor's walking around inside their own flashbacks. It's pretty fun stuff and we get flashes of brilliance like this from time to time. Enough to make it interesting and amusing at least. Wanna see a soccer team dust, vacuum, and clean a house? Check this movie out. It's to bad the script couldn't have gotten a few more rewrites to freshen it up a bit. They could have had something really good here and it's frustrating when you see a good movie hindered by a studio's ambition to just get the product out but...that's a different issue all together.

The cast does pretty good too. Prinzie Jr. has got a degree of charm and Jodi Lynn O'Keefe does a pretty decent bitch impression. The true find here is Rachael Leigh Cook. She's someone who is so un-"ugly duckling" but she carries it off well. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her in years to come. I hope so at least. My only complaint with her role is that why does someone have to wear glasses in order to be a dork (script terminology here)? AS an un-dorky glasses person I take offense to this...a little bit at least.

Maybe old is becoming new again but if they can improve upon what's started with "She's All That" we should be alright...from a movie stand point at least.

6 out of 10!