Emma Stone is very cute and she tries hard, but there is only so much juice you can squeeze out of a dried-up lemon of a script.

Rating: Null/10 (16 January 2012)

I don't normally watch modern teen comedies, in fact almost never, but a very good cast (a rarity these days) attracted me to this movie, and by that I mean Emma Stone and the adult i.e. older actors (apart from Lisa "Friends" Kudrow). I should have known better. I understand that this is just a mindless teen comedy, but even the lowest-common denominator genres have to subscribe to some level of basic logic and ground rules.
1. Stone gets called an "abominable tramp" during English class, to which she responds by calling the other girl an "abominable tw*t". And yet Stone is the only one that gets sent to the principle's office. Duh. 2. Right off the bat Stone is presented to us as a teen of above-average intelligence (which admittedly isn't saying much). In fact, as is typical in these movies, she is given lines of a middle-aged man with 5 university degrees, AND she is full of 5-cent movie "wisdom". And yet she agrees to the gay guy's preposterous plea to pretend to have sex with him even though that would clearly only make her phony reputation as an easy lay even worse. We were given to understand that Emma wasn't enjoying that reputation too much, so why the decision? The reason: just so the writer of this lame script could advance his shaky plot. The poor sap couldn't think of a logical way of doing this, so he chose an illogical plot-device. Nice going. 3. "Everyone claimed they slept with me, but no-one really bothered to actually sleep with me." (Stone) That's about as dumb as it gets. If your comedy has absolutely zero basis in reality than very little in it will be funny, it's that simple. 4. The writer, probably some middle-aged male, simply projected himself onto Emma's character, a teen, and the result is a girl that doesn't appear even 1% believable, at any point in the movie.
Not to mention casting an incredibly geeky, ugly girl to play Emma Stone as a 12 year-old. If only it was meant to be funny, but it wasn't.
One of the more annoying aspects of EA were Stone's parents, played by Tucci and Clarkson. Always cracking wise, their totally unrealistic hip-understanding-always-cheerful-intelligent-parents shtick gets old very quickly, as does their almost clownish behaviour. But that's the problem of the whole movie: nothing here has an ounce of realism hence it's hard to either care for the characters or laugh at the gags that seem to get increasingly formulaic as the time drags on (and on).
Mocking "Jesus freaks" is too easy, it's been done so often by Hollywood by now it's hardly interesting anymore. Besides, didn't "Monty Python's Life of Brian" teach Americans how to do religious satire properly? That must have gone way over their empty heads. These Christian gags are so lame they were more than cringe-worthy.
But what could one expect? This director calls up on John Hughes as a major filmic inspiration. But just as "The Breakfast Club" cannot be enjoyed by anyone older than 18, the same might be true for EA too. (Admittedly, "Ferris Bueler's Day Off" shouldn't be enjoyed or watched by anyone, regardless of sex or age.) Even more embarrassing is that after all the cardboard, utterly absurd characters and goings-on that EA offers us, suddenly they give us Emma Stone CRYING – as if one hour into this goofy mess we can possibly take anything "dramatic" that occurs here even half-way seriously. Double-duh. You don't create a cheese-ball comedy environment but then suddenly expect the viewer to take the characters seriously – well, you don't if you're a writer with any amount of common sense.
Predictable and obligatory left-wing political correctness is sprayed all over this turkey: the usual pro-gay stuff, "the only thing that trumps religion is Capitalism" (Stone), Florida being commended for voting for Obama, the school's principal being labeled a "Fascist" because he doesn't believe in liberally-orientated New Age BS education systems, a black kid being adopted by Tucci and Clarkson, "the Civil War was just about racism" (Stone), etc. The whole left-wing movie propaganda alphabet, it's all here. Yes, even in a daft teen comedy. They never let up. Ironically, that makes them just as persistent and self-righteous as the "Jesus freaks" they mock here with such childish gusto. (When are American liberals finally going to smell the roses and realize that religion and their precious Marxism are just two sides of the same smelly coin?)
In the end, were it not for Emma Stone being present in nearly every scene, EA could have easily been an unwatchable bomb with no redeeming value whatsoever. It's a pity her films so far have been nearly all garbage. The fact that she seems to be a rising star in Hollywood only means her roles will get even worse. Watch her lift an Oscar in an overrated costume drama, a left-wing propaganda thriller, or a drama about a woman with no legs.
On second thought, no. Oscars are awarded nearly always to homely women with nepotist ties.