Flak Magazine: Review of Not Another Teen Movie, 12-27-01

Not Another Teen Movie didn't have to be as revolting as an open raccoon carcass baking in the sun on the side of the road. The pungent odor. The bloody mess. The needless loss. The swarm of flies. This hit-and-run accident didn't have to happen.

Not Another Teen Movie could have been a biting satire, a clever romp or, at least, a tolerable movie. The teenybopper genre, with its formulaic storylines and cookie-cutter characters, is ripe for parody. And the blueprint for constructing a clever skewering of film clichès was drawn by the classic Airplane movies and recently well-executed by the Scream trilogy. Not Another Teen Movie didn't have to be innovative — simply creative.

To their limited credit, the makers of Not Another Teen Movie sense the potential in lampooning angst-ridden films for adolescents. They have assembled the usual suspects found in these outings: cocky jocks, desperate nerds, airy beauties and a black sidekick. They have crammed every plot convention into the movie's running time: ugly duckling becomes lovely swan; hopeless boy strives to lose his virginity; shallow cheerleader yearns to be prom queen; callow playboy learns to appreciate inner worth in females … .

Unfortunately, Not Another Teen Movie only exaggerates its characters and premises — stretching the clichès wafer thin without adding any clever twists. For example, in a spoof on the girl-kissing-girl scene in Cruel Intentions, Not Another Teen Movie recreates the encounter and attempts to milk laughs from the web of saliva strands that connect the lips after the kiss. The close-up causes more groans than laughs.

These stale retakes follow each other ceaselessly and get lamer as they go. In a play on American Pie's notorious sex scene with a baked good, Not Another Teen Movie can only think to invite a second pie to the party. It's a threesome! Get it? Wanna give it back?

Great lampoons introduce a familiar setup then take the audience somewhere unexpected. For instance, in Airplane!, two black men talking in slang have difficulty communicating with the white stewardess. That's mildly amusing. But when actress Barbara Billingsley (Mrs. Cleaver from television's "Leave it to Beaver") cheerfully offers her help ("Stewardess, I speak jive."), the hilarity rises through the roof. When Mrs. Cleaver, a symbol of all that is fair, sunny and suburban, snaps at the black men when they get rude with her and tells them off in jive, well, that's classic. The brilliance comes from knowing when to work against type and how to rewrite the rules.

Not Another Teen Movie delivers nothing new. All the memorable bits from other teen movies — The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Varsity Blues, etc. — are present and accounted for, but the moments feel terribly pathetic because they weren't all that special the first time around. If Not Another Teen Movie could recast the mold, that might be entertainment. But literally mimicking the old dialogue and hoping that nostalgia and nastiness can substitute for wit? Surely they jest.

Sadly, they're not kidding — and stop calling me Shirley.

— Rasheed Newson (rasheednewson@hotmail.com)