He's All That

Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Addison Rae, Tanner Buchanan, Madison Pettis, Rachael Leigh Cook, Peyton Meyer, Isabella Crovetti, Myra Molloy, Annie Jacob, Kourtney Kardashian
Running Time: 91 min.
Rating: TV-MA

★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

The notion of whether it's a good idea to remake the 1999 romantic comedy She's All That is entirely beside the point. Setting aside the fact we've become numb to any reboot by now, the original is hardly an impeachable cinematic treasure to be passed down through the ages, its basic plot never to be tinkered or toyed with again. After all, it's essentially a remake in itself, having cribbed its basic framework from My Fair Lady and the many ugly duckling makeover plots before and since. Now with Mark Waters' Netflix release, He's All That, it's officially happening again, complete with a gender swap twist and some other elements thrown in to appeal to more modern audiences.

There's always a certain nostalgic appreciation that accompanies even the worst films if you were in the right place and time when it hit. As a serviceable rom-com with two likeable leads that went on to become somewhat of a parody of itself in pop culture, She's All That might conjure up those feelings for some. If anything, you could argue it's one of the better remake candidates, as there's pretty much nothing that can be done that would would either enhance or diminish its source material, which was always pretty malleable.

Having successfully directed genre favorites Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, Waters not only knows the territory, but would also seem to be the ideal choice to deliver what Netflix wants. And it's very clear what that is, with their big idea revolving around an influencer playing herself and using that to commentate on social media's shallowness. Of course, when the movie's simultaneously promoting and benefiting from this, it creates a complicated dichotomy that they navigate more gracefully than expected. While stopping just short of labeling it "self-aware," the approach isn't a terrible idea on paper. But by so blatantly relying on current technology for every facet of the plot, it does run the risk of eventually looking and feeling as dated as the original might to some now, assuming that even matters to fans down the road. What it may best be remembered for is culminating in a painless, hit-or-miss experience with a few bones thrown to fans of the original. 

Instagram influencer and high school senior Padgett Sawyer (TikTok star Addison Rae) appears on the surface to be living the high life, milking a lucrative corporate sponsorship and dating aspiring hip hop artist Jordan Van Draanen (Peyton Meyer). While Padgett's divorced mother Anna (She's All That's Rachael Leigh Cook) pulls down extra shifts as a nurse, encouraging her daughter to pursue a degree, everything comes undone when Jordan's hook-up with a backup dancer is captured on Padgett's live stream. 

Humiliated by her embarrassingly honest, over-the-top meltdown that goes viral, Padgett's suddenly bleeding followers and risks losing her sponsorship. In an attempt to reclaim her social status, she accepts a challenge from best friend Alden (Madison Pettis), to turn transform one of the school's least popular losers into prom king. She's handed anti-social outcast Cameron Kweller (Cobra Kai's Tanner Buchanan), who's so miserable that even his precocious younger sister Brin (Isabella Crovetti) and only friend Nisha (Annie Jacob) are losing patience. 

After initially rejecting her superficial attempts to take an interest in him, Padgett and Cameron gradually grow closer, realizing they share more in common than they could have thought. The problem is preventing him from finding out he's just a bet, as Padgett discovers there may be more to life than accumulating likes on social media.  

Taking the circumstances and blueprint of the original into account, there's a quick turnaround in Cameron's attitude and tolerance of Padgett. After what seems like relatively short time spent on establishing his unpleasantness on the lowest scale possible, he doesn't seem incredibly resistant to her advances, or even all that suspicious of the intentions. In a sense, this might be the most realistic aspect of R. Lee Fleming Jr.'s script if the goal was to present someone so terminally unpopular instantly taken when this girl's attention suddenly comes his way. But they make such a point hammering home his disgust for high school, social media, and anything resembling attention, that's kind of tough to buy. 

If everyone's bone of contention with the 1999 original was that the removal of a girl's glasses transformed her from ugly bookworm into the most popular, beautiful girl in school, this take is at least slightly more nuanced. In a deliberate attempt to avoid potential accusations of sexism and misogyny, they've swapped the genders and while the end results remain mostly unchanged, Buchanan's performance helps, putting the emphasis of Cameron's apathy toward the world on his personal grief and past trauma. It's a decent distinction, distracting from the fact that his moppy hair, flannel and social awkwardnessis are the new version of Rachael Leigh Cook's glasses, even if it just makes him more throwback than loser. 

Addison Rae isn't a professional actress, but apparently there are ways to work around that, with the film bending over backwards to exhaust most of them. She smiles and charms her way through this, pushing the limits of just how important a lead rom-com performance really is, as the rest of the cast picks up the slack, aside from a horrifying celebrity cameo that has this year's Razzie locked up. As for Cook, she appears as Padgett's mom, just so fans of the original can feel super old. That works, but she's given very little to do in what's arguably the film's most thankless role. But at least an entire younger generation gets to feel old also when they realize Aldin is played by the same Madison Pettis who appeared as The Rock's 8 year-old on screen daughter in The Game Plan. But if there's any positive to Freddie Prinze Jr. opting out, it's that fellow She's All That alum Matthew Lillard gets to take the spotlight with his brief, eccentrically crazed turn as Principal Bosch.

If acting is usually the last thing to go wrong with a film, someone forgot to tell Kourtney Kardashian, whose minutes-long stay as Padgett's passive-aggressive social media sponsor is neither passive nor aggressive, succeeding only in making Rae look like Sir Laurence Olivier in comparison. Even while acknowledging the practical desire to stunt cast a reality star in something like this, did it have to be someone you can see physically struggling to bring even the slightest sliver of believability or humanity to the dialogue?

Rae and Buchanan do share some nice scenes together when the ball gets fully rolling with the plot, but it's Peyton Meyer's performance as a self-absorbed viral hip hop egomaniac and Isabella Crovetti's scene-stealing turn as Cameron's caring sister that go above and beyond, with the latter especially adept at making the kind of honest, wry observations you'd hope a character with a front row seat to this silliness would.

Since this wouldn't be complete without somehow working in Sixpence None the Richer's ubiquitous "Kiss Me" song (or at least a cover of it) and a dance-off, we get both, even if the latter seems a bit too choreographed, failing to even capture the spontaneous spark and energy of the '99 film. There's nothing too objectionable about the angle they chose for approaching this material so much as how obvious the execution is. That Netflix has this down to a science by now might be a part of the problem since they've been dropping so many identically filmed and performed titles lately it's become hard for any to register as more than clickbait, even one with the seemingly built-in nostalgia factor of He's All That.   

The Game Plan

Director: Andy Fickman
Starring: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Madison Pettis, Kyra Sedgwick, Roselyn Sanchez, Paige Turco
Running Time: 110 min.
Rating: PG

*** (out of ****)

It is what it is, and for what it is, it works. That's my reasoning for mildly recommending Disney's The Game Plan starring The Rock, excuse me, Dwayne Johnson. Maybe I'm getting soft, but even I have to admit it's a movie kids will likely love and their parents will find reasonably amusing and entertaining. It's a good way to pass the time but if you happened to miss it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. It's a sappy paint-by-the numbers Disney movie that, to its credit, executes its premise well enough to earn a look.

This is the first film I've actually ever seen starring Johnson, and I figured that in the best case scenario maybe he'd be able to take a mediocre movie and make it at least watchable just on the strength of his natural charisma. I was wrong. He does one better and takes a movie that has little going for it and makes it pretty good. He gives a fantastic comic performance and the best news to come out of this film is the prospect that with stronger material he could really turn into something special as an actor in the future. In a way I kind of felt sorry for him having to "pay his dues" here this but it is good role for him and a showcase for his strengths as a performer.

At times I was blown away by how good his comic timing was and what he brought to what could have been a middling effort. He also gets a little help from an adorable and unannoyingly precocious child actress who also gives it everything she has. Despite its obvious shortcomings, the film has its heart in the right place and is quality family entertainment, an increasingly rare phenomenon in Hollywood lately. It's far from perfect and occasionally very stupid, but mostly on the strength of the lead performances it reaches the goal line in achieving everything it sets out to do.

Johnson is Joe "The King" Kingman, the cocky, arrogant star quarterback of the Boston Rebels who's in for the surprise of his life when little eight-year-old Peyton (Madison Pettis) shows up at the doorstep of his palatial bachelor pad, suitcase and all. She announces that she's the daughter his ex-wife conveniently neglected to tell him about after they divorced. At this point I was watching very carefully to see if the movie would be so dumb as to not address the fact that a child that age is traveling alone without a guardian and showed up unattended in a big city apartment complex. Most films wouldn't. This one does, however, as Joe is as flabbergasted as we are and we get a reasonable explanation for the whole situation later on.

Joe isn't exactly "Mr. Mom" and much to the distaste of his overbearing agent (a grating Kyra Sedgwick) his time is now spent unwittingly wearing bedazzled clothes and chauffeuring Peyton to ballet class. The dance teacher (Rosalyn Sanchez) demands full parental involvement in the class and isn't the slightest bit impressed by Joe's fame and accomplishments. Obviously, she's being set up as a love interest for Joe, but I was surprised at the restraint the writers showed in handling it. Actually, it really isn't handled at all, which was a welcome relief. Although I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the fact this is supposed to be a PG rated family movie.

We know exactly where all of this is going and where it'll end up yet somehow I found myself entertained throughout the slightly overlong picture and most of why is the chemistry between Johnson and Pettis. They play off each other really well and are believable as father and daughter. It's fun watching Johnson's reactions to her behavior as he tries to find a way to contain himself and deal with it in a reasonable manner. She isn't a brat, just a regular hyperactive kid, but this guy is still in way over his head.

I also like how director Andy Fickman lets Johnson slide in some personality traits and mannerisms from his wrestling character, like his Elvis obsession and tendency to refer to himself in the third person. It fits perfectly and the opening sequence where we're introduced to the character is great, in no small part due to the fact he has one of the coolest apartments in existence. As a wrestler The Rock was known as a guy who could flip from "good" to bad" at the drop of a hat. I never would've thought that skill would come in handy for him as an actor, but it does here. How Johnson conveys his character's transformation throughout the film is subtly and skillfully done and as much as I tried to fight it, by the end, I really ended up caring about this father-daughter relationship.

The film does hit a couple of sour notes, namely musical ones. Nathan Wang's score is annoying, unnecessarily adding an exclamation point to each scene and highlighting every little emotion. It actually calls attention to itself, something a film score should never do under any circumstances. Kyra Sedgwick's agent is also unbearable, but most of the blame can be put on Fickman for letting her indulge that broadly. I know it's a Disney film and the villains are supposed to be cartoonish, but it didn't seem to fit and her performance seemed excessive even for this type of film. At 110 minutes it could have used a little bit of a trim job, but I can't say it dragged or I was ever bored. The charm of the two leads carried it through.

To the surprise of many, this film actually cleaned up at the box office and I can see why. This is one of those rare cases where audiences were right and the critics struck out, overanalyzing things. It's just inoffensive fun and a welcome throwback to an era when Disney used to release quality live action films that were marketed as family affairs. Yes, the script is corny and simplistic but it's executed well onscreen and serves the audience it's aimed for.

You couldn't convince me The Game Plan is any less intelligent than other lightweight fare from 2007 like Hairspray or the fluffy Waitress, and I'd go out on a limb and say this is actually smarter than the latter, which dished out life lessons with a helping of sugar so sweet it could put a diabetic in a coma. That took an adult problem and approached it with a five-year-old mentality, while at least this is supposed to be simplistic and doesn't put on false pretences of being highly intellectual. It knows what it's trying to do and does it. What more could you ask for?

I'm not even a part of the audience this movie is aimed for and enjoyed myself, so I can only imagine how much kids would love it. They'll also love Johnson, who takes low-level material and knocks it out of the park. It's scary to think what he's capable of delivering if ever handed material of genuine substance. I have a feeling it won't be too long before we find out.