Release Date: December 14, 2001
Starring: Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Deon Richmond, Eric Jungmann
Directed by: Joel Gallen
Written by: Mike Bender, Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Phil Beauman, Buddy Johnson
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R (strong crude sexual content and humor, language, some drug content)
Its working title was Ten Things I Hate About Clueless Road Trips When I Can't Hardly Wait to be Kissed. The fact that it was changed to Not Another Teen Movie is proof that they gave up, knowing what they had was yet another cheap, boring spoof that's so vulgar and offensive that only a select few would enjoy it. Trying to match the wit of classic spoofs like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, Teen Movie is too close to the likes of the Wayans brothers' Scary Movie films, meaning it's like nearly every teen comedy since the late nineties. Not Another Teen Movie is too crude and idiotic to be enjoyed by anyone other than pubescent teenagers, and it knows it.
Joel Gallen, director of many an MTV special, threw this comedy together, and his lack of experience in the movies is probably just what the film needed to live up to its namesake. The credits show that a whole team of writers wrote the screenplay, and a creative meeting for them must have been like a half dozen second graders laughing at the names of body parts in the dictionary. They effectively grasped every teen movie cliché known to man, but they had too much fun writing and forgot about the innocent audience members who would be handing over their hard-earned money to be entertained by it.
They set the story at John Hughes High School (an admittedly clever name, honoring the king of 80's teen comedies). Jake Wyler (Chris Evans, TV's "Opposite Sex") is the typical popular jock, who makes a bet with a snobbish preppy friend that he can turn the "pretty ugly girl", Janey (Chyler Leigh, TV's "Saving Graces"), into this year's prom queen. Catherine (Mia Kirshner, TV's "24"), "the cruelest girl in school," and Priscilla (Jamie Pressly, Joe Dirt), "the bitchy cheerleader," become jealous of Janey's newfound attention and try to stop Jake from taking her to the prom: The stuck-up Priscilla starts dating the American Beauty-spoof weirdo with a camcorder to spite Jake, while the promiscuous Catherine tries her hardest to seduce Jake into bed.
Of course, for the sake of tasteless homage, Catherine and Jake are brother and sister (a la Cruel Intentions). Meanwhile, the characters appropriately make fun of the "pretty ugly girl" cliché by saying, "Eww, she has glasses and a pony tail," while a girl with a hump and two conjoined twins walk past without attracting the slightest bit of notice. Without a doubt, the movie is offensive, but makers of these types of movies know no other way. After the American Pie movies and There's Something About Mary hit it big at the box office, teen comedies don't feel like teen comedies without someone's grandmother catching them masturbating or a toilet full of excrement exploding on someone.
"What has the world come to?" is the appropriate question, and Not Another Teen Movie's saving grace is that it's trying to be like every other teen comedy. They have the beautiful foreign exchange student walking around school completely naked without anyone thinking twice about it, the "token black guy" who even makes fun of himself for being the only African-American character in the whole picture, and the sixty-year-old "undercover" high school reporter going unnoticed by everyone. Fans of The Breakfast Club, American Pie, American Beauty, She's All That, Never Been Kissed, and Road Trip will all have moments to smile at, and a couple of cameo appearances from some almost-forgotten teen stars of the eighties are a small treat too.
But don't forget that it's just Another Teen Movie. In case you didn't know, that means it's just one more film out to make money from clueless teenagers -- who happen to make up the largest demographic of moviegoing Americans. The fact that it knows it's a bad movie makes it a little fun, but the more mature audience will agree that it's simply a bad movie.
all contents © 2001 Andy Zientek