Okay, why did I see this movie? Nothing better to do. Really! I read the brief plot description on the website, and I was as good as sold.
First, I thought I'd share my theater experience.
If you wish to skip to the review, feel free to scroll down to the sword.
Does it get any more embarrassing than this? Okay. The lady who was handing out the tickets must have been days shy of 112; I ended up having to repeat myself twice. Right in front of a whole slew of guys behind me. Just makes it look like I was that much more anxious and insistent upon seeing it.
So I got the obligatory nachos and soda, glanced at the clock in time to see that I was five minutes late, made one last stop to empty the bladder, and I was on my merry way.
Well, I sat down in my usual spot; I was the only one in the entire darkness of the theater. The previews hadn't started yet, so I was relieved. About a dozen nachos and seven or eight minutes later, a sense of worry started to come over me. It was now at least 10-12 minutes past the supposed starting time, and I was still staring at local college ads, Coca-Cola ads, and messages that said "Thank you for not smoking" and "Please turn off all cell phones and beepers. Thank you." On a somewhat unrelated note, I find the necessity for the latter to be a sad, sad thing. It's like a five-star restaurant having to put signs over every table saying, "Please refrain from farting."
So I reluctantly slinked my way down to the office to let them know someone must have forgotten to start the film.
"Which one?"
"Uhh, auditorium 14... The Hot Chick?"
"Allright."
I headed back, checking the clock again. It was now 15 minutes past the starting time. I sat down again, and the beginning commercials started. And there was sound! At last, we had liftoff. But commercials? Since when did we have commercials in theaters anyway? Previews I can see, yeah. But commercials? Good Lord. Anyway, the screen went blank, and I got ready for the previews. Only the previews didn't come. Instead, we returned to the Coca-Cola ads and all that. Hmmm, I thought. They must be having some trouble with it. Oh well, I'll give them a few minutes.
Five minutes later, my nacho reserves were down to 25%, and still no movie, no previews, no nothing. I got up and looked into the projection room; there didn't seem to be anyone in there. So again I went out to the office. No one was there. So I reluctantly approached the guy at the refreshments stand and told him about it.
"Which one?"
"Uhh, auditorium 14. The Hot Chick." I felt like a ten-year-old little boy on his knees, begging his father to let him have a peek at the Playboy magazines under the mattress. "Titty please, with sugar on top?" So back into the darkness I fled, but not before checking the clock, to see that it was now a full half hour after the starting time.
Well, thankfully, it worked that time! I didn't see anyone show up five or ten minutes before the end of the movie for the show after that one. Oh well.
Well, the movie itself wasn't all that bad! There are of course, the "not another teen movie!" moments. And some of the songs were as Britney as they come. But as a whole, the movie delivered on its premise.
We are introduced to Jessica, the "perfect" chick. She leads the cheerleading team, dates the quarterback, yadda yadda all that stupid shit. The ideal life, you know. But behind that gorgeous exterior lurks a real "chick prick", if you catch my drift.
Stealing a fancy pair of earrings finally brings Jessica her comeuppance when she loses one at a gas station. Little does she realize that the guy who has the other earring now was actually robbing the gas station while she was there. ("I don't have any money, everybody pays with credit cards nowadays!") Then, the real fun begins when Jessica wakes up the next day, inside this man's body. Now that the whole thing has been set up, nothing to do but coast.
Some of the googly-eyed faces are just beyond total silliness, but otherwise, Anna Faris was actually pretty good as April, Jessica's best friend. And I thought that was Britney Spears. My bad! Didn't recognize her with the hair color change. April handles most of her scenes as "just a girl", but even the more difficult scenes, she pulls them off well. Like her initial discovery of what happened to her friend. I couldn't help but be reminded of Josh and Billy's "reunification" in Big, since Jessica proves her identity to her friend the exact same way. I'd call this stealing an idea, except that realistically, if this kind of thing were to happen, there would be no better way to prove yourself, other than to let them pop quiz you on things that only you would know. But good luck making something like that interesting to an audience! Not to insinuate that it is interesting watching high-school girls do hand-clapping pattycake-esque rituals while making chants about how all guys are losers. But that's beside the point.
Rob Schneider had the real challenge of playing a high school girl trapped in a 40-year-old man's body. He was pretty impressive, unabashedly self-depreciating, but in a way that doesn't make fun of women so much as it makes fun of him as a woman. Weird, huh?
From trying to learn how to pee (Seriously, it ain't THAT hard! Okay, when it's hard it is. Never mind.), to shaving, to waking up with his first boner, to wearing preppy clothes around, he was surprisingly... well, hot. When April starts falling for "him" (like you don't know that's gonna happen), the chemistry actually works. April is only thinking, "This is my best friend in the world, someone I truly love with all my heart, and she's got a dick!" Cue the googly eyes. Jessica looks back with a kind of desperation, guilt and sympathy. And I found it sweet. God help me, I found it sweet!
Now there's also a problem with the gas station robber being trapped in Jessica's body. They don't elaborate much on his (her?) situation, but at least he had his period. I'd have slashed a whole star if they had omitted that.
Rachel McAdams doesn't get much screen time. But it wasn't that big a deal, because (and I SO hate to say this) she's really not that photogenic. I'm no judge of such things, but I assume that when someone ends up looking like three different people depending on what angle you are seeing them from, then that's what you'd say. She has some pretty gorgeous moments, and it would've been nice to see more of what the guy does inside her body. (Then again, maybe not.)
Of course stereotypes abound from every corner of the universe in which this movie takes place. An Asian mother included specifically to annoy and embarrass her black daughter, a bartender who can't decide whether he's homosexual or a stalker, and let's not even start with Rob's shameless and incessant pleas for assurance, "Do I look pretty?" But stereotypes are provoked anyway, so who cares.
Well it may not be the most morally grounded or mature flick that's out right now, but it does do everything they say it does; it puts a girl in a man's body and shows us around. It has minor "things" that come back later as clues. The only quibble I would have is that it waits until the last half hour before the hot chick and her hot friends gain any real momentum on finding out how the whole thing happened, let alone reversing the process. They might have stretched out the "final battle" a bit, since there was so much going on as far as loose ends. Fortunately, they do manage to tie them all up and everyone goes home happily ever after and out of breath.
Not the most memorable flick, but it's fun while it lasts.
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