Posted: 12/22/2003

Love Don’t Cost a Thing

(2003)

by Josh Gloer

But it may not be worth the price of a ticket, either.

I was embarrassed to buy a ticket to this movie. Maybe it was because the 17 year old behind the speaker and plate glass window at the box office laughed at my request for a student price. Maybe it was because I was the only one in line that was over 18. Maybe it was because the title Love Don’t Cost A Thing sounds ridiculous when delivered through my Missouri white boy dialect. More likely, I was embarrassed to purchase the ticket as I thought this film just didn’t even look like it would have any semblance of entertaining potential. I was right.

Based on the 80’s teen flick Can’t Buy Me Love starring a then unknown Patrick Dempsey, Love Don’t Cost A Thing remains very true to the original story structure as Alvin Johnson, played by an already too noticeable Nick Cannon is a “loser” looking to break into the popular crowd. When the object of his lust wrecks her mother’s car, he offers to spend the money he saved from cleaning pools intended to buy a state of the art engine part for a project that would grant him a full scholarship to a good engineering school, and buy the parts necessary to fix the damaged SUV. In return, Paris (Christina Milian) must agree to spend two weeks with Alvin pretending to be his girlfriend.

In true 80’s movie style, Alvin becomes “Al,” the cool alter-ego of the pool scraping no-name as simply hanging out with Paris raises his social standing. Leaving his nerdy engineering friends behind, Alvin begins to forget his priorities, and doesn’t finish his engine project. Suddenly (and I mean very suddenly), the confidence that goes along with popularity gets out of control, and Al dumps Paris in a humiliating high school hallway scene. Paris is on the way out as Al begins ole means of communication. Al’s new found confidence also granted him a swaggering strut that looks like he was constantly walking barefoot across broken glass. In short, he looked like a complete jackass.

The writing wasn’t much worse as the audience sees people do things such as page a boyfriend, and then deliver a line as stupid as, “Paged him.” We know you paged him, we just saw you do it. The focal point of Can’t Buy Me Love was to enjoy who you are and be proud of yourself, but the writers in this ghastly remake paid so much attention to making Alvin’s father Clarence (Steve Harvey) into comic relief that the message seems to have skewed. While the plot ends with the lukewarm realization of inner beauty, the former two thirds of the film seem to push the issue that its OK for young children to have sex. Clarence’s views that all Alvin needs is a little love seem extremely inappropriate as he gives a lecture on what condom to use with what woman. This film is intended for children, and this message, while most likely unintentional, seemed terribly out of place.

The acting was average, the writing terrible, and to top it off, this film contained an artistic style that was not only inappropriate for this type of film, but it actually is painful to the eyes as strange angles and focusing litter the already trashy script. Entire scenes shot from inside a kitchen cabinet belong in the art house, not in what was intended to be a major teen hit.

While Alvin got the girl, and finally built his engine for the scholarship, I couldn’t help wonder what anyone else got out of the movie. I didn’t get much, and wanted my money back. This is the worst film I have seen in years.

Josh Gloer is one of our L.A. staffers. He is a screenwriter working his way up the Hollywood ladder.

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