DVD Review: She's All That

The DVD:

Movie:
Let me begin this review by stating how much I like this new teen comedy genre. It's a refreshing change from watching teens either run from a killer or aliens or some other various terror. It's unfortunate that the teen comedy genre is starting to churn out movies more terrifying than some of the teen horror flicks that these stars are fresh from.

Take "She's All That"(please!), an amazingly bland picture that is limply written and weakly directed by TV director Rob Iscove. The pic starts positively by introducing it's young stars and the plot and it even has an interestingly done and creative beach party flashback. Class president Zach(Freddie Prinze, Jr., reminding me of Keanu Reeves in his "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" stage) has just been dumped by his valley girl girlfriend, Taylor( Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, in a one-note diva-esque performance) and, of course, his friends are "like, whoa dude, that's a bummer." Then, co-jock Dean and Zack place a bet that Zack can't turn the class wallflower, Laney(Rachel Leigh Cook, in a performance that doesn't liven her blandly written character) into a prom queen in 6 weeks.

Of course, like any Hollywood film, the frumpy wallflower is already attractive. Rachel Leigh Cook, who looks sort of Winona Ryder-ish, would probably be considered attractive by the standards of many men. Of course, Zack instantly sets out to woo the girl, who's suspicious of his sudden attraction, much like she seems suspicious of nearly everyone and everything else. The two meet up again at a performance art show where she brings Prinze's character up on stage where he proceeds to completely embarass himself as he improvs his own little bit of performance art, which apparently, his character found to be a "high". The scene is unintentionally hilarious in the extreme. Of course, Zack finds Laney's world increasingly interesting, and predictably, he begins to fall for her. The two of them are awkward together, with Prinze and Cook having little or no chemistry together in their scenes.

"She's All That" would be at least watchable if it had any energy whatsoever. Besides the fact that it brings nothing new to the genre, it doesn't even present its recycled material with any spark or life. I like the actors themselves, but they add nothing to their already one-dimensional characters.Even the fight between Laney and Taylor to win the title of prom queen towards the end of the film isn't interesting. The film can't even make the fight between the two girls from different backgrounds for the title of prom queen very interesting to watch.

This is all the more horrifying coming from Miramax Films, a studio who I admire greatly. Harvey Weinstein, who runs Miramax Films, is a brilliant marketer of film, but if this signifies his new taste in film, that's unfortunate. Miramax has done some of my favorites of recent years(Rounders, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Pulp Fiction, on and on). Apparently, Harvey has caught on to the fact that teen films can be made with little or no budget and make tons of dough. I think if you bring this same formula to the table over and over again, eventually it'll fall down(see the teen horror genre).This film alone just about sets the genre back about a decade. Even Sarah Michelle Gellar has a cameo that lasts about a second, with an amusing "what did I just step into?" look on her face.

There is a funny film inside a film in "She's All That", though. Zack's girlfriend Taylor leaves him for Brock("Scream"'s Matt Lillard), a member of MTV's "The Real World" and an obvious parody of that show's Puck character. Some of these "Real World" scenes are hilarious and a parody of that show, if done right, could be something hilarious. Back to the film at hand, though, it's unfortunate that the film is not only unoriginal, it's predictable. Of course, Laney is transformed into...well...she looks the same. She's still cute. No more, no less. She just takes her glasses off and puts on a dress. Not too impressive at all, and it's this scene that's crucial to the rest of the film working. I just didn't buy it. It doesn't help that the two of them barely have any conversations that last more than a few minutes and the dialogue they do have is simply uninteresting and uneventful. It all feels incredibly tedious and the occasional funny or interesting remark seems like it was done by accident.

I certainly like this genre of teens interacting with each other rather than running from a killer or aliens, but please, give the characters something interesting to say. It seems as if the writers of all of these films never went to high school, or are so far removed from high school that their ideas come directly from some stereotypical view of today's teens. Either way, the film feels painfully unrealistic. But, actually, that's a very small portion of this film's problems. If you want to see an example of this genre that I enjoyed, rent last year's "Can't Hardly Wait", by no means a flawless film itself, but it's a much more fun, sweet and energetic picture than this one.

VIDEO: The usual Disney fare, "good but not great". The image quality is inconsistent throughout, ranging from scenes that look bright, crisp, clear and colorful to scenes(especially indoors) that look dim and soft. In general though, I found the image on an unfortunate amount of this disc to be rather soft and lacking detail. Colors are bright and vibrant and for the most part, well saturated. Fleshtones are alright, for the most part looking realistic, but occasionally looking slightly unnatural. There are no problems with artifacts in terms of pixelization or shimmering, but I did notice a tiny flaw or two in the print used. Disney consistently seems to throw the materials up in the air and see how they land- the inconsistency on their releases is rather impressive. There's two different films coming out from Disney this week, "A Civil Action" is the other film besides this one. That disc looks and sounds great. The best thing I can say about this film is that the video quality is average and the audio is fair at the very best. The fact that they didn't treat this release better, a film that was a success at the box office, is baffling. The video quality is alright, but that's not what will anger people most about this disc.....

SOUND:..... it's the sound that'll get people angry. Oooh, boy I can smell a war brewing on this one. Instead of including the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that was used in theaters, the only thing that's included here is Dolby 2.0. It doesn't sound that great- the music sounds dull, flat and thin, the dialogue only sounds fair. There's not much here at all and I think people will be very dissapointed in what they find here.

MENUS: Basic film-themed menus. Very basic.

EXTRAS: Disney includes the Sixpence None The Richer "Kiss Me" music video, but apparently, putting that in means that they can't include the trailer. No trailer, just the video.

GRADES:
The Film: 60/D = (300/500 possible points)
Video: 86/B = (344/400 possible points)
Audio: 78/C+ = (312/400 possible points)
Extras: 65/D = (195/300 possible points)
Menus: 70/C = (140/200 possible points)
Value: 75/C = (225/300 possible points)
Presentation:74.75/C = (74.75/100 possible points)

TOTAL POINTS:1590.75/2200
Overall:72.30%/C
Final Thoughts: Terrible film, not a great disc at all, either. Definitely not recommended.

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DVD Information

She's All That
Miramax Home Video
1.85:1/ Dolby 2.0
96 Minutes
Dual Layer:No
Rated:PG-13
Release Date:7/13/99
Anamorphic:No
Region:1