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She's The Man
A soccer playing girl pretends to be her own brother in order to play on the boys' team, all to the tune of Twelfth Night... eurgh. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole - but hold the branding iron - it's actually not that bad.
I enjoyed She's The Man far more than I expected to. It's still hugely hampered by the albatross of Twelfth Night that it loosely follows, but despite that, it'll be received well. The good parts are really good - including an appropriately pumping soundtrack - but that quality doesn't extend far enough to challenge for cult status. A worthy effort. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - references to tampons is as dangerous as it gets. To enjoy this film you should be: able to ignore the inane mistaken identity nonsense.
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Talk about a ball and chain though. Having to carry the monster of crap plots is a serious millstone to the movie. Let it
be known here and now that I'm squarely in the anti-Shakespeare camp. To me, reading Shakespeare is the mental equivalent
of wearing sandpaper pants for the London Marathon. I'm quite prepared to believe that in the days when waste disposal
meant chucking your piss out of the window and diarrhoea was fatal that yes, Shakespeare was probably
the best playwright in existence. But - and feel free to call me a fickle ponce if it makes you feel better - I choose to
embrace indoor plumbing, antibiotics and competent storytelling that the recent centuries have blessed us with.
She's The Man was doing just fine until it made the mistake of following Twelfth Night's ludicrous charade of mistaken
identity - so now we are supposed to believe that a girl dressed as her brother can actually be mistaken for that brother,
despite looking entirely dissimilar, being 6 inches apart in height and sounding completely different. This kind of
sphincter-steak is not going to wash with the young target audience who won't be familiar with the corpse juice that passes
for comedy in the Shakespearean world.
Now I've vented my spleen about the bard (and believe me, I was holding back), I'm pleased to report that despite its
immediate disadvantage, She's The Man is far more entertaining than it has any right to be. Some inspired casting has
transformed the feel of the movie, best of all being the school headmaster David Cross, who fans of the brilliant TV series
Arrested Development will recognise and welcome - he plays much the same part here and the movie is all the better for it.
Vinnie Jones does his snarly hard-man thing as the coach, but it's getting a little tired now, we need to see him taking the
piss out of himself if he's to carry on earning in Hollywood. The lead role is taken by Amanda Bynes, who is a regular
on American TV but is virtually unknown in the UK - she does an excellent job in a tacky role, showing sparkle and charisma
that many other teen heroines could learn from - she's a Lindsay Lohan with a citrus twist. The screenplay is rather drab,
but the script has some very acerbic and funny moments that make up for it.
