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Reviewed by Gabriela Toth
There are two things I can’t stand in teen romantic comedies: weak female characters, and when teenagers are portrayed as ignorant and one-dimensional. “She’s All That” has both of those, and I’m sorry, but I don’t relate to either. In fact, I don’t know any teenagers who do, which is why movies like this don’t make any sense.
“She’s All That” attempts to take “Pygmalion” and relocate it to high school, while also stealing from “90210” (they even use the same set), “Dawson’s Creek,” and about every single John Hughes movie. Well, director Robert Iscove is no John Hughes, and what results is just a big boring mess of a movie. Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the most popular guy in school (which apparently means he alone dictates the thought processes of the entire student body), has just been dumped by his slutty girlfriend. He then makes a bet with his friends that he can turn Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook), a dorky art student into a prom queen. Lo and behold, Zack soon forgets about the bet when he starts to actually fall for Laney. Sound familiar? Yawn.
Here is the problem: Laney is already beautiful, but she has a major confidence issue. Not only do the “popular” girls think she’s a dork, but we get the feeling that she actually believes this. Cook is frustratingly boring in this role, and the character is written as completely shallow and weak. Being a dork myself in high school, I have major trouble believing that Laney would actually care what others think, and that she actually sits around all day wishing she were one of the “others.” Never mind the fact that she actually falls for Zack’s “dork outreach program” (as she calls it), and even gets upset when Zack’s ex-girlfriend, Taylor, throws a dim-witted insult her way, exclaiming, “To everyone here who matters, you're vapor, you're Spam. A waste of perfectly good yearbook space.” Ooh, I’m hurt. She then chides, “You’re not going to cry, are you?” and what does Laney do? Cries and runs away, collapsing to the ground as if she were falling in slow motion. This is also the point in the movie where you realize that yes, Rachael Leigh Cook’s acting is actually worse than Tori Spelling’s. The closest she gets to actual emotion is whining, rather unconvincingly, (this is the comic highlight of the movie), “Am I a bet? Am I a f—ing bet?!” and then, surprise, she starts to cry, and runs off. Hi, Tori? This Rachael. I was wondering if you could help me with my acting?
Moving on, Prinze is equally dull as Zack, and the only thing we know about him is that he’s the most popular guy in school, although we’re never clued in as to why. The only thing he knows how to do is smile and try (really hard) to look cute, even though he’s not. Rounding out the cast of dumb characters are Paul Walker as Dean Sampson, Zack’s even dumber friend whom Laney falls for also (didn’t she learn anything?), and Matthew Lillard as Brock Hudson (what an original name), a reject from The Real World.
On the plus side, Jodi Lynn O’Keefe was actually quite amusing as Zack’s ex girlfriend, and the always charming Anna Paquin makes a very brief appearance as Zack’s little sister. However, when the movie’s over, the negatives outweigh the positives, and this movie is a waste of perfectly good VCR space.