How Teen Movies Draw in Millions: Work in Progress
Written: Jan 04 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: humor
Cons: "teen flick" ('nuff said), pacing, strange realism
The Bottom Line: Do you like teen flicks? You're not getting anything different, no matter how hot this Chick is.
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| deeblackthorne's Full Review: Hot Chick |
The Happy Madison Production company proudly presents The Hot Chick, the story of Jessica Spencer, popular high school girl extraordinaire, who, enticed by earrings in a voodoo-esque shop, tries them own and ends up switching bodies with a 30-year-old debt-wielding, aimless, nacho-cheese stealing thief. She discovers the switch the next morning and, for the rest of the film, journeys to reunite the earrings and get her body back.
It's a "teen flick" in the very sense of the term. Similar to films like She's All That and Bring It On, the California school systems obviously don't care about whether or not the kids get an education, much less stay in school instead of shopping malls and becoming so incredibly self-absorbed with their social lives, cheerleading and football. But alas. It's the microcosm we've been handed; let's work to understand it better.
The film starts off wholly focused on Jessica and continues to do so after the switch. Until the movie's ending, we only discover a couple of cut scenes with the bandit in Jessica's body. He naturally wonders what happened with his genitalia, and uses his new body to beat up men and steal their money while he's not stripping at a club.
Jessica, on the other hand, hardly adjusts. She mistakenly wears her gal pal April's clothes until she has to masquerade as "Spence," the new school janitor and April's prom date after her boyfriend ditches her for someone more interesting. And when she's not Spence, she's "Taquito," (egad.) her family's gardener. And while estranged suburban mothers are noticing that their daughters are either absent (Jessica) or behaving strangely (April), everything seems to work out fine. Though the public reacts to Jessica's now male body but female persona, there isn't enough suspicion aroused to merit The Hot Chick's strange plot; people "deal" with it.
That's my problem with the film.
Yes, there's no denying how amusing the portrayals come off. I definitely split a side seeing Jessica acting like a guy as best as she could, but still fails miserably. I laughed at "Spence" in the club: the interactions with the bartender (who turns out gay in the end), learning how to pee over and over again, the morning wood thing. Amusing. And we get our standard issue caricatures. We have a Korean mother whose proud of her half-black (mostly black) daughter Ling Ling, works at a nails store, and is so aware of Black culture that she suggests her friend Lu Lu to cut down on the "chronic." We have father-gardener camaraderie that introduces the art of sports rough play and the "porn star trim" for men's equipment. And, God why?, April falls in love with "Spence." It's amusing for all the corny, pun-infested and stupid reasons, but it still gets a laugh.
But for the hour and 45-minute ride, you get little more entertainment than laughing. The plot seems glued together. Situations and circumstances work themselves out nicely. With someone like Jessica, we knew long before the movie started up, that she'll get her body back and everything will work out happily ever after in the end. And I thought I would somehow like the redemption that Jessica goes through: her adventure brings together some of the many she's publicly humiliated as her allies, and she gives penance for being such a... (ahem). But it falls flat. She's glad to be back in her new body, and while the film doesn't overtly show her returning to her old ways, something tells me she won't be particularly nice to the Hindenburg fat girl anymore.
I have to keep telling myself that I saw it at a friend's recommendation...
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
deeblackthorne
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Member: Dee Hill Zuganelli
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA
Reviews written: 130
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
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