Review of Not Another Teen Movie (Extended Edition)

Introduction

Ever gone into a comedy club, sat in the front row, crossed your arms and glared at the comic, and said, "Go on then, make me laugh!" That`s not exactly the ideal attitude to have when watching comedy, but more often than not that is how I face the prospect of reviewing comedy movies. It doesn`t help that there may be the necessity to pause the disc if there is a curious glitch in the image, a smidgen of edge-enhancement that needs closer examination, or an inaudible punchline that requires repeating with the subtitles on. That, by itself would kill the flow of a comedy, and reset a watcher`s mirth-meter back to zero. Reviewing a comedy film places a greater burden on it to be funny, and it`s with a sense of anticipation and dread that I press play and dare the extended version of Not Another Teen Movie to induce chuckles. "Go ahead punks, make me laugh!"

Having said that, I am inclined to be favourable about this film. I`m a child of the eighties, and have a fond place in my heart for the films of John Hughes. Although to modern audiences they may seem to parody themselves, there`s no reason that a modern spoof can`t touch on films like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller for inspiration. Not Another Teen Movie also draws on more recent films like Cruel Intentions, American Pie and Varsity Blues, with its main plot echoing that of She`s All That. In this film, it`s high school jock Jake Wyler (Chris `not the ginger DJ` Evans) who enters into a bet to see if he can transform wallflower Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) into the Prom Queen. Meanwhile a trio of freshmen are desperate to lose their virginities. Add movie references galore, gags and pratfalls, an unhealthy dose of toilet humour and bake for 96 minutes in a DVD oven set to Region Mark 2. Incidentally, this Extended Edition release sees the restoration of around ten minutes of deleted footage. I haven`t seen the original version so I can`t really tell you what difference it makes.

Video

A recent film gets a clear and unblemished 1.85:1 anamorphic presentation. I think I saw a couple of jump cuts where deleted footage was reinserted, but that could have been my imagination. It`s a decent transfer with little to complain about.

Audio

DD 5.1 English, German, French as well as DD 2.0 Surround Italian and Hungarian, all topped off with so many subtitles that they take up three pages of the disc`s menu screens. The sound is functional, it does what it`s called to and doesn`t really stand out in any way. The dialogue is clear, and the soundtrack allows you to wallow in nostalgia. In fact, it may be worth looking up the OST on CD.

Features

The film is presented on a disc with appropriately cheeky animated menus. Extras-wise you get a fair collection of featurettes for your money.

Freshman Year (13 minutes), Best Dressed (9 minutes) and Class Clown (10 minutes) look at the making of the film. There are cast and crew interviews, plenty of backslapping, a look at the production design and costumes, as well as some of the practical effects that went into realising the gags in the film.

You get to see Marilyn Manson`s mauling of Tainted Love, although the video is quite nice. Utterly pointless is the 5-minute making of the music video.

The Auditions Montage lets you see some of the screen tests for about 4 minutes, the yearbook presents a 7-minute image slideshow of the cast, and Meet The Cast Promos are seven 30-second trailers for the film where the characters introduce themselves.

Test Your Teen Movie IQ is a multiple-choice quiz that has the director and the cast asking the questions. Answer them using your remote control.

Finally director Joel Gallen presents his first short movie, Car Ride starring Internet doyenne Jenny McCarthy, which lasts for 4 minutes.

Conclusion

My eyes! My eyes! Someone, please give me mental bleach. What a hideous exploitative train wreck of a film. I truly feel soiled by this experience, and hopefully this review will act as sufficient warning to those who are drawn in by morbid curiosity. And no, I didn`t laugh. Not once. The secret of a good spoof is that you have to love that to which you pay homage. Once you can do that, you`re free to rip apart that genre to extract as much cliché and film references as you want. That has resulted in classic comedies like Airplane, The Naked Gun, Loaded Weapon and countless others. It`s clear that the makers of Not Another Teen Movie don`t give a fig about the movies they are spoofing, and instead just lift plot and character ideas from them wholesale. These ideas aren`t explored, developed to any decent degree; they just skim the surface for humour, leaving a potential goldmine of comedy untouched.

Some of the problem may be that the John Hughes movies serve as better self-parody than this film could ever hope to achieve. Looking at the Breakfast Club now, the idea of a bunch of middle class white kids, with middle class problems sorting out their lives in the middle of detention seems ridiculous. Especially with the random dance number thrown in. Not Another Teen Movie doesn`t even attempt that sort of straight-faced ridicule. Instead it relies on the usual litany of toilet humour that passes for highbrow comedy these days. If you`re in the mood for a literal s***-storm caused by a toilet accident, incest, scatophilia, Siamese twins, lesbian French kissing between a teenager and an octogenarian, then better call ahead to the hospital because your sides just might split. I apologise unreservedly for giving away the intellectual high points of the film.

The jokes are extremely tired. I am sick of the `token black guy` joke. In the post modern spoof, there is always one black character named `The Token Black Guy`, whose whole point is to speak with an urban accent, point out that he is `the token black guy`, (if in a horror spoof he`ll also mention that he`ll be the first one to die), and other than that he doesn`t do a whole lot. It was funny the first time. Now it`s Hollywood having its cake and eating it. Spoof the marginalization and demeaning position of an ethnic group in Hollywood by creating a role that marginalizes and demeans. It`s not ironic, it`s moronic! Then there is the foreign exchange student. One gimmick, she walks around naked. That`s it! Nudity in comedies is supposed to be jiggly. She has one of those Hollywood toned and tanned bodies that look sculpted out of silicone and Teflon. The homage is half-baked too. They use Ferris Bueller`s house, but do little with it, other than an absolutely obvious gag that doesn`t even work. The American Pie spoof doesn`t get enough development, and the one moment that I did find charming, the recreation of the Breakfast Club library almost managed to convince me to switch off the disc and watch the original movie instead.

But, just because I think that Not Another Teen Movie is a putrescent pile of s***, doesn`t mean that you might not like it. Reviews are by their nature subjective, so what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. Don`t worry, as I`m not going to judge you. On the other hand, I am going to give you a significantly more potent argument why not to bother with this disc. It`s a double dip rip-off!

Not Another Teen Movie was originally released in its shorter theatrical version, a disc that can still be picked up at the time of writing for a smidgen under five pounds at various online retailers. The extras that you see listed above were all presented on that disc, in addition to deleted scenes. It`s suspicious that those scenes aren`t presented on this Extended Edition… Extended Edition? Hold On! I`m seeing what they have done here. BUT! The original version also had two commentary tracks, as well as a subtitle trivia track. To make this Extended Edition Europe friendly, they have added four more language tracks, umpteen subtitles but ditched the commentaries. This extended edition actually gives you less than before. So if you like this film (still not judging), unless English isn`t your first language, then go for the original theatrical release.

This has been something of a rant. But you haven`t seen all the profanity that I had to edit out. This film has that effect on me. In fact, in a couple of months I`ll probably post that version of the review as an R-Rated version, just to cash in, and you`ll have to read it all over again, seeing how much better a review it will be because of all the effing and blinding.

Half a point for the Marilyn Manson video, half a point for Molly Ringwald making a cameo and managing to maintain her dignity in this turd of a film, one whole point for the Breakfast Club bit, and another point for Mr T because, well he`s Mr T, he`s in this film, `nuff said. But two marks off for the cynical double-dip. Avoid!