Taming of the Shrew for the teen generation

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2008)

Modern versions of Shakespeare can often fall flat on their faces, and there were times while watching this when I thought '10 Things I Hate About You' was one of those failures.
Bianca and Kat, transposed to American high school and aiming to go to the Prom, mirror Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew' characters to a point - however, this Kat is just a sarcastic, roll-eyes, typical teen we've seen hundreds of times before.
This film's Petruchio becomes Pat, an arrogant rebel (played well by the late Heath Ledger in his debut movie role in the US). At first he pursues Kat (spiky but effective Julia Stiles) as a bet but, guess what, the path of true love ...
One of the best scenes is the 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' song in the stadium, but even that becomes a cliché and despite its charm, doesn't really work.
This film is OK. It has its moments and some touches (Kat's poem instead of her 'big speech') which work well, but in the main it suffers from the usual teen movie problems - bad language, cardboard background characters, tedious back-plots (which have little to do with the Shrew source).
As Shakespeare for the masses it is fun, pacey, and fairly true to its theme. And perhaps that is all it should be judged on.