Not Another Teen Movie

A teen movie parody featuring the usual suspects from all high school flicks including the nasty cheerleader, the popular jock, the pretty ugly girl, the cocky blonde guy, the desperate virgins, the stupid fat guy, the cruelest girl in school, the obsessed best friend and the token black guy. Spoofs of many other films ensue…

The time certainly had come to make fun of the plethora of teen flicks that have been bombing us for the past few years, but is this the right movie to do it? Well…sort of. Like most parody films which don’t succeed completely (real successes include AIRPLANE, SCARY MOVIE, TOP SECRET), half the jokes in this one are funny and work, while the rest are unfunny and lame. It’s basically a decent video rental, although you gotta respect it for at least giving us the T&A that we deserve (and plenty of it, kids!), along with the cursing and what-not (yeah, that’s right…real teens do swear…whatta shock!) Good call, gentlemen! (and the naked chick walking around the whole time was a nice touch!) I also really enjoyed the soundtrack, which included oldies but goodies, as well as some more recent cool tunes. More good stuff! Unfortunately for us, we have to sit through many an unfunny joke/sequence, before a good one comes along. Some of the jokes that really didn’t work for me included the “football” game scenes, the pratfalls/hits by objects, the opening sequence with the vibrator and everything to do with the cheerleaders and the Tourette syndrome chick. Some of the funnier spoofs included the Ferris Bueller scene in which the boy’s parents are worried about him having a party at home, the “special” talk between father and daughter, with the dad offering some really “great” advice to his precious “Pumpkintits”, pretty much everything which included the black guy saying something funny, the “slow clap” guy, as well as the coach and his continuous use of the word “goddamn!”

I was also extremely impressed by the big-boobed bimbo who they got to parody Jennifer Love Hewitt in the film, only to find out later that it was actually Lacey Chabert, who seems to have picked up many a tit lesson from Hewitt herself. Great job(s)!! You also have to give it up to the entire cast, especially the two leads, for playing their roles with great enthusiasm and believability. But the bottom line with any parody movie isn’t the performances or the story…it’s the laughs/silences ratio. This one only delivered half of the time, which is why it’s only getting half of my points. I’d also like to say that this film felt like it was about ten years old with way too many references to the John Hughes classic teen flicks from the 80s (some of my personal fave teen flick incidentally) and obvious inserts for more recent teen fare. It was like some marketing guru at the studio remembered this old script he had been given and asked a couple of new writers to “spruce” it up to the present day (note the five screenwriters credited for writing this puppy!) And speaking of “selling out”, have I mentioned how I too have written a spoof script set in high school, written by myself and Indiana Sev from the site, which is much funnier than this one, with a better story, more clever cheekiness…basically, a real “diamond in the rough” for any studio looking to produce another take on the teen genre…well…have I?!? Well, if I haven’t, harrumph…allow me to take this moment to do just that! Hehehe. Seriously though, if you’re interested…email me now! (for people who are really interested in making the movie only– thank you).

But blatant plugs aside, this movie isn’t out to hurt anyone and you gotta at least give it credit for attempting to parody so many different teen flicks in one (I can’t even remember them all here). So check it out if you’re looking for some cheap laughs one night and if you consider yourself a real connaisseur of the teen flicks genre, since you will most likely “get” much more out of it that way. I actually laughed at a handful of jokes that others didn’t seem to pick up on, so I’m sure that every generation will get at least some chuckles out of it.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian