She's the Man

She's the Man
Director: Andy Fickman
Screenplay by Ewan Leslie, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith, from a story by Leslie inspired by William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
Dreamworks

She's the Man is one of those movies that try to be critic-proof. A critic will say, "That's ridiculous and unrealistic," and the filmmakers say, "We know! Just what we wanted!" So, even if you hate the movie, then you're hating it for the wrong reasons, so the logic goes.

In this movie, "inspired by" Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Viola (Amanda Bynes) is a star on her soccer team, but the school is going to can the program (believe me, if I saw the kinds of blazing hot chicks on the soccer team that are on this one, I'd be buying a ticket to all the games, home and away, and I'm not the only one. So there's the first crazy plot point). She then tries to make entreaties to get on the boys' soccer team, the one her boyfriend plays for. She's ridiculed, and her boyfriend becomes a total jerkwad. Luckily for Viola, the makings of a zany scheme are in place when her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) unexpectedly leaves for London to play in his band, leaving her to be able to take his place--with some help. She'll try out for the team as a boy for his school (the logistics of all this make my brain spin in lethal directions--I guess no one in charge misses Viola at her old school, and what about the courses she has to take?).

Of course, she doesn't look like a boy at all, but everyone buys it for the sake of the flick. And here's where the romantic entanglements begin. The hot blonde Olivia (Laura Ramsey) takes a liking to Viola/Sebastian. And V/S takes a liking to roommate and teammate Duke (Channing Tatum), who wants Olivia. It's also one of those movies (like many romances) where every character finds someone in the end, even the token homosexual, who always seems to find that guy who didn't know he was homosexual.

This isn't a complete success, obviously, as I couldn't get around that premise all the way, but there are funny moments which elevate this above total crap. It's no 10 Things I Hate About You, the Julia Stiles updating of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, but it can offer a couple of hours of mindless enjoyment.