Not Another Teen Movie Review

Teen comedies, like horror flicks, seem to come around every few years either by re-inventing themselves (American Pie, Scream) or just because it's been several years since the last one. This movie is somewhat different, because it's a parody - 100 minutes of references and scenes blatantly stolen and remodelled knowingly to tell the story.Effectively this is “She's All That” as a basic storyline, as high school jock Jake Wyler (Evans pre-Fantastic Four) is dumped by cheerleader and all round bitch Priscilla (Pressly). Wyler is then involved in a bet that he can transform the most unlikely, unattractive school teen into the prom queen - in this case Janey Briggs (Leigh). Can Wyler turn the glasses and ponytail wearing girl with paint on her clothes from hopeless loser to prom queen? Will he fail or will he learn a lesson in life, as suggested by the “token black guy”? Will you be able to spot all the references to movies?Yes that's as basic as the storyline goes but as a pure send-up/parody, this hits the mark a lot more times than it misses - from the name of the school “John Hughes High School”, to the cameo appearance of Molly Ringwald, this is actually pretty funny stuff. From movies such as Porky's, Bring It On, American Beauty and Cruel Intentions (Mia “L-Word” Kirshner's character is based on Sarah Michelle Gellar's character blatantly - even to the kissing scene), this has plenty to keep the most ardent movie buffs going with reference hunting, but ignoring that fact, there is much here to enjoy. Sure the cast and characters are numerous - from the aforementioned “token black guy” Malik (who says “Damn!” “Sh*t!” and “That is whack!”) to the naked foreign exchange student, whose accent changes, as they are representing no country in being a generic foreign exchange student, but we clearly know which movies they are from or represent and even if we don't, we get the joke. This directors cut features 10 minutes extra footage from the original release, but in all fairness as it has been a while since I've seen this movie, I couldn't easily tell you what has been added.I can't find too much negative to say about the movie, sure it's not going to win an Oscar for anything, but it's done in the tradition of throw as much as you can at the audience, so if one joke misses you totally, the next one probably won't. It's also actually quite interesting to see some actors whom are making a bigger impact than when they originally made this, such as Chris Evans, who made Cellular and currently the Fantastic Four, Mia Kirshner, whom has appeared in 24 and is a main character in The L Word, even Lacey Chabert does an amazing look-alike as such as Amanda Becker (Jennifer Love Hewitt's character from Can't Hardly Wait - named Amanda Beckett). Heck, even Melissa Joan Hart makes a cameo!! There're actually more than just the people I've identified here that you should have seen in other things, but you get the idea.Basically, this is a good fun movie, nothing more and should be viewed as nothing more, from gross out humour to clever parody, even if something doesn't hit your funny bone, something else later probably will.