Comedy + Drama + Romance = Ultimate Teen Movie

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2004)

First off, this film was surprisingly better than i expected, obviously when compared with other teen comedies... why does 'American Pie' come to mind? I did see the trailer before watching the movie because i was rather intrigued with the plot (i also liked the imdb tagline 'he never saw her coming... but all his friends had', genius!). Anyway, to get to the point, the trailer made me chuckle, however, i was expecting the same result as 'American Pie 2'... where the only scenes that were remotely funny made up the trailer. In the end, this wasn't the case and for that alone, the movie does not deserve as much criticism as it has received.
The only flaw to the movie i can think of is that Elisha Cuthbert far is too beautiful to be a pornstar but her evident ability to act made the part that bit more believable together with the apparent perception of chemistry between the two leading roles (Hirsch & Cuthbert). Whilst they managed to uphold the romantic and dramatic side of the movie, the inclusion of side characters, most notably Eli (Marquette) and Kelly (Olyphant), brought out a major chunk of the comic influence that had me and others around me laughing non-stop from start to finish. Even the smaller roles (e.g. Samnang) were fully justified by the response they receive rather than the part they play in the development of the storyline.
The overall ending was not as predictable as first thought, with the exception of the two main characters winding up together... which can be forgiven as otherwise the first 1hr 30 of the movie would have been completely pointless. There was 1 plot line and for those who thought otherwise, all i can say is you must have been confusing 'The Girl Next Door' with the hotdog tell you to go to the lobby before the movie started along with all the other needless trailers. If there was anything to be upset about it was people laughing at jokes from the trailer... i've never understood why people do that, pretending as though they've never heard the joke before. But i digress to the point of saying that all reviews are merely subjective and we can all expect that this movie is not going to win any oscar's but if i were to pick a teen movie for someone in need of a laugh, this would be without a doubt my choice.