The Chud sent us this look at SHE'S ALL THAT, another teen flick that seems to be packing them in theater seats like sardines in a can. That's probably what sparked the Chuds interest, well I'll let them spell it out for yoy...
To say the the teen market is a strong one is like saying Sean Connery is a slightly charismatic man, the MOTHER of understatements. Varsity Blues, Scream, Rush Hour, The Waterboy, and their ilk have bombarded the ticket booths thanks to the 12-18 demographic. It is that group that catapulted this film to number one by a huge margin this past weekend. But is it good?
She's All That
Directed by Robert (a slew of tv movies) Iscove
Starring Freddie (I Know What You Did Last Summer 1 and 2) Prinze, Jr., Rachael Leigh (Living Out Loud, The House of Yes) Cook, Matthew (The Curve, Scream) Lillard, Kevin (The Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men) Pollack, Kieran (Home Alone, The Mighty) Culkin, Tim (Fletch, Animal House) Matheson
Featuring a veritable "Who's Who" of young actors, the film starts off with a neat credits sequence where the names of the cast are whisked, swirled, and dabbed away by an artist as they create a painting for class. That artist is Lainey, the introverted girl at the center of the film. Unwanted, unpopular, and considered unattractive by the entire student body (except "The Mighty" star Elden Ratliff), she goes about her time caring for her slightly handicapped brother (Culkin, far better than his big Mac), her widowed father (Pollack, slumming after work in some true classics), and creating various tormented works of art.
She becomes the center of attention when the most popular guy in the school (Prinze, who is actually a good talent) is dumped by his prom queen girlfriend (a virtual CLONE of actress Theresa Russell from "Wild Things" and "Whore"), and is pressured into a bet by his best friend to get the biggest loser in the school to be his "rebound girlfriend" and the prom queen. Lainey turns out to be that girl, and the game is afoot.
The film covers almost every cliche from "Some Kind of Wonderful", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Can't Hardly Wait", "Clueless", and countless other teen films. It's also rings hollow a lot, usually with fakish dialogue or generic scenarios. There are good moments: The performance art piece where the midgets burst out of the bag, the scenes with Lillard (playing a riff on Puck from "The Real World) being a nut, and scenes where Prinze and Culkin are together. I can see why the film was successful, but I also see that it's basically an artificial product made to cater to the teen demographic.
They never really make you feel that the two leads care for each other, and they never make you really care for them either. You end up liking or disliking actors in the film rather than their characters.
All in all a standard jambalaya of leftovers from more substantial meals. It ain't all that.
6 out of 10
From the Chud Report
