She's the Man is Decadent and Depraved

Rating: 4/10 (10 April 2006)

The tag line for this movie reads, "Everybody has a secret... Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who's with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who's crushing on Duke who thinks she's a guy..." Did you get that? Me neither. Basically, this movie is about a soccer star vixen named Olivia who thinks she has what it takes to play along side the boys and defeat her jerk of an ex. In order to do this, she has to take her brother's place, Sebastian, at the rival boarding school, or "college preparatory" as they would call it around my neck of the woods. Luckily, Sebastian and his band are going to be touring England for two weeks, which gives Olivia just enough time to pose as her brother, join the soccer team, defeat her ex-boyfriend, find a new man and cause a heap of drama that only rich kids in movies seem to be able to do.
This movie is far from original, but the director (Andy Fickman) does not try to hide this. The film is advertised as being based off of Shakespeare's "Twelve Night" only in the original not everybody gets what they want, and David Cross (Principal Gold) is nowhere to be found (darn). Luckily, for all of those Shakespearian 11 year old girls going to see the movie, they are not left with an empty, ripped-off feeling in their bowels after seeing this movie. However, had these 11 year old girls been, lets say, a 20 year-old Webster student who may or may not answer to the name, "Pat" the after effects of this movie would be greatly different. Perhaps the director thought that everyone would forget about a little 1985 classic, "Just One of the Guys" which involved a cute high school girl going undercover as a boy to prove a point about the sexist society in which she lived and getting a crush on a guy, causing hilarity to ensue. The main difference I see between these two movies is that "Just One of the Guys" rules, and "She's the Man" blows chunks.
Despite my desires to see Amanda Bynes remain a boy for the remainder of her career (which currently doesn't look too good), she really doesn't do her brother's role justice. Plot holes aside, no one notices that Sebastian isn't really Sebastian, including his girlfriend whom Olivia (as Sebastian, played by Amanda Bynes. This is confusing!) dumps in a pizza parlor. The final product of the sex change is Sebastian looking/acting like a 12 year old boy instead of a senior in high school. Olivia's main love interest, and coincidentally her roommate, Duke, is pretty much what you'd expect from a love interest in one of these movies; Athletic, hot, a hard exterior with a soft caramel center you get the point. The only character in this movie that didn't blend in with the background was Principal Gold, played by David Cross, of Arrested Development/Mr. Show fame. He was the comical relief of this movie. Just when I was getting really sick of everything and everyone in this film, I see David Cross, and I say to myself, "Ah, maybe I won't walk out on this movie after all." Unfortunately, Cross' role in this film is minor, and the rest of the characters in this movie are so bland and stereotypical that I kept hoping the film would turn from romantic-comedy to murder-comedy in mid dialogue. That did not happen, and I was left fixating myself on the "Violent Femmes" t-shirt the real Sebastian was wearing right before he decided to go jam with the blokes across the pond.
Characters aside, the big idea of this movie really isn't very big at all. It's no Kubrick, Hopper/Fonda or Welles to say the least, but as a movie reviewer, I will dig deep to shed some conceptual light on this teen flick. Director Andy Fickman, AKA voice of a generation, tries to poke at the inner desires and stresses of all teens who attend elite boarding schools with dopey parents and evil girls breathing down their necks. He's basically trying to say that taking advantage of your parents divorce, lying to everyone, cross-dressing and playing mind games with your closest company is perfectly acceptable because in the end you will always get what you want and there will never be any repercussions. Maybe he just meant that for Amanda Bynes, but next time I'm in a jam and need to prove an ex wrong, I will have my wig and skirt ready. The only detail I've yet to work out would be shoving my brother on an airplane bound for Europe, although that may just be a touch of the ole' Hollywood magic. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, Fickman shows us that love really does conquer all, even when you are a straight teenage brute and the one you fall in love with happens to be a quirky testosterone lacking boy for the first 2 weeks of your relationship.
Bottom line is this: If you are over the age of 14 and you don't have an unhealthy/illegal obsession with Amanda Bynes, this movie is not for you. To all the Shakespeare buffs, I'd stick to Leo and Claire for your on-screen re-creations. And for all of you David Cross fanatics (which there are billions of) there really isn't enough Principal Gold time to justify spending $6+ on a ticket. Maybe you could wait until it's in the $1 bin at Wal-Mart. So if you start your cars now, and take the quickest possible route to the store, they should be unloading boxes of this film by the time you get there. And I almost forgot, what about all of you who just love a cheesy teen movie with a white washed cast and a nauseatingly predictable ending? Well, this is the one for you!