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Not the man, but amusing anyway |
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Written by NED O'REILLY
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Friday, 17 March 2006 |
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People who want to hate this teen movie will tear it apart. I won’t do that, if for no other reason than that Amanda Bynes is a gifted comic actress who will shine later when she gets a more mature script and a decent director. Right now she's got plenty of star power and does enough gags to keep us laughing or at least interested most of the way through.
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"She's the Man"
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 Entertainment
 Art
Directed by Andy Fickman
Written by Ewan Leslie, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith
Based very loosely on William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”
Starring Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum
Rated PG-13 for some sexual material
Released March 17, 2006
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Most of the way. A dependable, if not terribly original script keeps this baby moving at a fun and funny enough pace until an absolutely disastrous climactic revelation sequence. Bynes plays Viola, a gifted high school soccer player who, after her school drops the girls’ team, decides to masquerade as her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) in order to make the boys’ soccer team at a rival private school. Sebastian, playing the “I’m staying at Dad’s this week” game with his divorced parents, sneaks off to London to play a series of gigs with his band, thus opening the door for Viola’s scheme. Her partners include Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), an apparently gay stylemaster, and two other soccer divas (Amanda Crew and Jessica Lewis).
Once in her new dorm room, Viola meets Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum), the sensitive stud jock who befriends her version of Sebastian despite repeated (and mostly comical) exhibitions of decidedly uncool behavior. Viola draws the lovely Olivia (Laura Ramsey), on whom Duke has a long-standing, unrequited crush, as her lab partner, setting up a deal in which Duke helps Viola improve her game so she can make first string while Viola convinces Olivia to go out with Duke. If any of this nonsense sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because most of the character names and the basic plot are from Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” acknowledged in the opening credits.
The movie features the usual harradin, Monique (Alex Breckenridge), Sebastian’s girlfriend, who’s always a step behind Viola’s impersonation, supporting teammates Toby (Brandon Jay McLaren) and Andrew (Clifton Murray) distilled way down from the Bard’s original comic relief, and Eunice (Emily Perkins), an unnecessarily stereotyped ugly-girl, who is Duke’s lab partner, falls for Sebastian, falls for Toby, etc. Also around are David Cross as Headmaster Gold, who looks and acts like a B-grade circus clown who forgot to put on his makeup, Julie Hagerty as the clueless mom, and Vinnie Jones as the conveniently Australian soccer coach.
Bynes really does show a lot of comic inventiveness and somehow pulls off the risky character choice of regularly reaching into her shirt or dress and adjusting or removing things. Her voice and mannerisms as Sebastian are stagey and ludicrous and would fool no one in real life, but are enough to keep us entertained, which is a good thing, since no one else is given any opportunity to do anything but play the straight man or girl to Bynes’ colorful gender-hopper – except Cross, who is so weird as to seem to belong in another movie.
The writers are the same folks who put together “10 Things I Hate About You,” a few years ago, which boasted a better cast if not a much more convincing based-on-Shakespeare story. Ultimately, you can enjoy the Twelfth Night references and follow the magnetic Bynes around campus for a while just for the fun of it. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
Other Recent Articles by NED O''REILLY:Big summer thrills in MI:3"Stick It", "Stick It" Good"V" is captivating movie-goingOscars spread the wealthLots to chew on in "Freedomland"
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