Posted: 12/15/2001

Not Another Teen Movie

(2001)

by Hank Yuloff

T&A without all that silly Teen Angst.

So you have spent your career writing and directing various incarnations of the MTV Music Awards and musical shows, parodies of the Matrix and Mission Impossible and the Victoria Secret Fashion Show. What’s next? This was the question director Joel Gallen and writer Mike Bender must have asked themselves. Why not write a teen movie, but not just any teen movie,

Not Another Teen Movie. A grand spoof of all of teen movies.

I could use the same paragraph to open this review if I liked the movie or not and include it because I KNOW that most of the people who see the trailer are not going to see Not Another Teen Movie. And the core of folk who are going to see it don’t care what the reviews say. So this review is for those who are looking for some video to rent 6 months after Not Another Teen Movie comes and goes from the screens.

It’s a good rent. And here’s why.

The basic story is a retelling (or rip-off) of She’s All That, but it is complicated by adding plot twists from Cruel Intentions, Varsity Blues, 16 Candles and American Pie. On a secondary level (listen to me get deep), you will see jokes and “clips” which are taken from Road Trip, Bring It On (including a scenes by a cheerleader with Turrets), Can’t Hardly Wait (Little Lacey Chabert, Claudia Salinger from Party of 5 is all grown up), 10 Things I Hate About You, Final Destination (remember the bus kill?), and All the Right Moves.

On another level, these guys must have rented everything in the John Hughes library because if you loved Pretty In Pink, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Weird Science, you will notice tons of references. Most are blatant like the scene in the Library between Dick Vernon (Paul Gleason reprising the roll) and a bunch of miscreants taken directly from The Breakfast Club, but some are subtle -look at the walls in the back of the library.

That subtlety is one of the most fun parts of the movie. As the backdrop to the kids leaving the prom, you will see Spicoli’s Television Repair Shop—a reminder of one of my all time favorite teen flicks: Fast Times at Ridgemont High. You will also see Ferris Bueller’s dad (Lyman Ward) in a cameo. If you have the DVD, you are going to be able to go back and see how many references you can find or hear the director’s comments. But don’t do it the first time through, you’ll be laughing too much. Or groaning. If you are in the target demographic of 18 (rated R)to 25, you have spent your viewing life seeing movies like Not Another Teen Movie and it’s going to be very funny. If you’re older but still haven’t grown up completely, you’ve seen a bunch of these later teen flicks and will still laugh audibly and OFTEN.

Last year I was so disappointed with Scary Movie 2 because there was no plot, just a bunch of badly done scenes put together. It wasn’t even funny. Not Another Teen Movie is funny. Sick and downright gross, in many spots, but funny. It is definitely an R-rated movie. I also think it is kind of cute that they named the high school John Hughes High School. It is also great that you are going to see teen movie queen Molly Ringwald set up the finale of the movie.

Not Another Teen Movie takes all the stereotypical high schoolers that other teen flicks have and makes fun of the genre. The Cruelest Girl (Mia Kirshner), the Bitch of a Cheerleader (Jamie Pressly), the Hot and Always Naked Foreign Exchange Student (played by former Yellow Power Ranger Cerina Vincent), and the Ugly Girl Who Really Isn’t (Chyler Leigh), are all there and all hot chicks.

As for the guys, the Super Cool Jock (Chris Evans), the Obsessed Best Friend (defined in the 80’s by Anthony Michael Hall—and by me in high school before that—played here by Eric Jungmann), the Fat Guy, the Token Black Guy, etc. are all in attendance. The difference isthat Not Another Teen Movie makes fun of all of them. It even pokes fun at dance numbers, which usually has a quick cut at the end but here leaves the characters hanging after the music stops and those stupid slow clap scenes where all the kids come to a realization that something wonderful has just occurred.

Not Another Teen Movie is not that something wonderful. But rent it you should.

Hank Yuloff is an expert on the Teen Movie Genre, having grown up wishing for that same pair of panties Anthony Michael Hall got in Sixteen Candles, or to be cast opposite Phoebe Cates in anything. By the way: on the T&A scale, Not Another Teen Movie rates a 7. If Pressly had worn less, it would have been an 8+.

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