Not Another Teen Movie (2001)

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Starring: Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Eric Jungmann, Cody McMains, Sam Huntington, Samm Levine, Ron Lester

Teenage comedy and romance movies are out there by the dozen. And more often than not, they usually feature around similar story lines. Jake Wyler (Evans) is the school hot shot with almost all the girls desiring him. A self-obsessed person, he believes he can have any girl he wants and can make anyone become prom queen. His friend, Austin (Olsen) decides to challenge Jake into this by making him date the ugliest girl in school and make her prom queen. Enter, Janey Briggs (Leigh), a geeky, bespectacled girl who has absolutely no fashion sense and whose father is far too busy getting drunk than bother about her life. Jake's sister, Catherine (Kirshner) is sexually attracted to Jake and promises to help him court Janey if she can get to spend a night with him in return. The movie spoofs on teen rom-com movies and highlights the typical stereotypes seen in almost all the movies. The sexually desperate teenage brother of the lead actor, the token black guy in the movie who is there to avoid racial discrimination debates, the uber-sexy foreign exchange student, the hard-hitting football coach and many others. Although the movie correctly picks on all the stereotypes and pokes fun at it, it is unable to make any impact on the movie without prior relevance to the movie being referred to. Most of the movies picked are lesser known ones and hence the audience might find it a tad difficult to relate to the jokes. There are moments of humour, unlike every other spoof movie, but not enough to make this a roll over the floor kind of comedy.

Thumbs up: Good references, some funny moments

Thumbs down: Audience needs familiarity with the movies being portrayed

Rating: 6.2/10