Brief Story Line
Padgett Sawyer (Addison Rae) was a high school student and famous influencer who received lots of endorsements and income. She kept it for her college fund in order to help her mother Anna (Rachel Leigh Cook - Josie and the Pussycats, Perception TV series etc) who was working as a nurse. Padgett was best friends with Alden Pierce (Madison Pettis - American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules etc) & Quinn (Myra Molloy) and having an equally famous boyfriend Jordan (Peyton Meyer - Girl Meets World TV series etc).
But when she broke up with Jordan due to some reasons, Padgett took a bet with Alden that she could turn an anti social guy at school named Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan - Designated Survivor TV series, Cobra Kai TV series etc) into a prom king, just like she previously did with Jordan.
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this teen romantic comedy movie.
End of Brief Story Line
I said above that after reading a bit about the premise of this movie, I was intrigued by it, since the film was a gender-swapped remake of popular 1999 movie titled She's All That. Now I could not remember the detail of that movie (after all it was more than 20 years ago), but I still recall its main plot. So it's very easy to relate with this film, especially as it was quite loyal to the original like the bet, the best friends, the makeover and so on.
For a teen rom-com such as this, it did not require complicated plot or heavy thought provoking story. Since my wife and I already knew what we would be getting into, we did not feel this to be too terrible and still could enjoy it. We even manage to have few laughs out of it. Although there were things that I personally would like better such as the choosing of the cast (some of them looked a bit raw in their acting, plus their faces were not youthful enough to be high school students) and probably few other items.
For a modern remake, this one did show an up to date change that should be relatable with the current condition (the lead character is a famous social media influencer). Choosing Addison Rae who is one of the most followed real life influencer in the world, was a nice touch. One thing that I liked about the cast was the inclusion of Rachel Leigh Cook and Matthew Lilard (Scream, Without a Paddle etc) who played in the original movie. But since this is not a remake, they played completely different characters. There was even the cover song "Kiss Me" which was the OST of the original.
Aside from those two persons and the few main cast mentioned above, there were also other supporting cast such as Isabella Crovetti (Colony TV series etc) as Cameron's younger sister Brin, Annie Jacob as Nisha and a surprise appearance of one of the Kardashians. One funny thing about Madison Pettis who played Alden, my wife was able to recognize her from the movie The Game Plan despite it was a 2007 film and she was still a kid. A great example of "I never forget a face" phrase.
Overall, this was a pretty standard romantic comedy aimed for teens. It has an interesting idea of swapping the gender like in movies such as Ghostbusters, Ocean's 8 and few others. However, the execution might not be so easy. If I have to compare, I think I liked the original better. This one was OK, but not great. It seems audience and critics were unhappy with the lack of chemistry of the lead stars, as proven from the low rating from both. So if you like the original film and just want to see how this remake fare, then you are welcome to give it a try. But if you believe all the negative comments, then probably not a good idea to watch this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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