She’s The Man

 She’s The Man
Cast: Amanda Bynes
Studio: Dreamworks
Rating: 5/10

CORPORATE LINE: It’s hard enough being the nerdy new guy on campus without also being the new girl on campus, who has fallen for the coolest guy on campus, who is totally obsessed with the most beautiful girl on campus, who is crushing on the nerdy new guy on campus.

Viola Johnson (Amanda Bynes) had her own good reasons for disguising herself as her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) and enrolling in his place at his new boarding school, Illyria Prep. She was counting on Sebastian being AWOL from school as he tried to break into the music scene in London. What she didn’t count on was falling in love with her hot roommate, Duke (Channing Tatum), who in turn only has eyes for the beautiful Olivia (Laura Ramsey). Making matters worse, Olivia is starting to fall for Sebastian, who—for reasons Olivia couldn’t begin to guess—appears to be the sensitive type of guy she’d always dreamed of meeting. If things weren’t complicated enough, the real Sebastian has come back from London two days earlier than expected and arrives on campus having no clue that he’s been replaced…by his own twin sister.

THE REVIEW: She’s The Man is a pure rip-off of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. How bad do we need Hollywood to ruin the great reputation of Shakespeare? As long as She’s The Man sells we can be sure they’ll keep dipping the ink in the well.

The funniest thing about She’s The Man is how impossible it is to believe Amanda Bynes as a teenage boy. Her voice isn’t convincing and she is too pretty to be believable. Bynes lacks the comedic sensibility to pull the part off.

THE EXTRAS: The first featurette is a commentary by Director and cast featuring Amanda Bynes and cast. Normally a lot of chatter ends up being chaos and yet it actually works well during this discussion. It’s almost like sitting at the lunch table in high school eavesdropping on the entire group. There are interesting stories and discussion about working on the movie and Bynes becoming a guy.

Finally there are also deleted scenes, a featurette called “Making the Man”, a gag reel, Dave Lichens music video: “Let Go”, cast photo album, and pop-up trivia.

FRANKLY: Honestly She’s The Man had a lot of potential. Amanda Bynes was a poor choice to play the lead. Teenage girls are the target audience and maybe they’ll enjoy it—but it’s hard to believe anyone else will.

+ Charlie Craine


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