Film Reviews

Not Another Teen Movie

• Rating:
• Director: Joel Gallen
• Starring: Chris Evans
• Details: US / 82 mins / (18).

An alleged parody of the High School coming-of-age genre, and in particular, She's All That (1998) Not Another Teen Movie is a grossly unfunny comedy with little or no wit or substance. Here, we've got the chick-loving' jock, the nerdy outsider, the ugly duckling, the solitary black guy and all of the other staples associated with the genre. However, rather than using these characters constructively to say something valid about the genre and American youth culture in general, director Gallen just uses them as simple reference points and for all-too-obvious gags. Furthermore, the filmmaker's insistence on laughing at the high school genre but also attempting stringently applying the rules of the same to his own movie means that Not Another Teen Movie is a confused enterprise and devoid of any merit. In short, think Scary Movie 2, but worse.

Review by Garreth Murphy