Not Another Teen Movie DVD Review:


The Movie

This film shows no mercy as it skewers the conventions and clichés of the genre you hate to love. In his feature film directorial debut, Joel Gallen spoofs the ever-popular teen genre.

The students of John Hughes High School live the plot lines of numerous teen flicks, including SHE'S ALL THAT, AMERICAN PIE, TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, VARSITY BLUES, and SIXTEEN CANDLES, to name just a few. Throw in a few guest appearances from familiar faces from some of the best-known teen movies of the 1980s, along with remakes of songs from the same films and even some word for word dialogue and you have an amusing walk down memory lane for anyone who has a soft spot for THE BREAKFAST CLUB, CRUEL INTENTIONS, and PRETTY IN PINK.

We meet our teen friends, The Nasty Cheerleader (Jaime Pressly) who dumps The Popular Jock (Chris Evans) for The Beautiful Weirdo (Riley Smith), insulted by his ex-girlfriend's actions, The Popular Jock makes a bet with The Token Black Guy (Deon Richmond) and The Cocky Blonde Guy (Eric Christian Olsen) that he can turn the most hopeless chic at school into this year's prom queen. The Pretty Ugly Girl (Chyler Leigh) is obviously selected as the lucky lady. Of course, The Obsessed Best Friend (Eric Jungmann) that has been stocking and lusting over her for years is not very pleased with this. The Pretty Ugly Girl's brother, The Desperate Virgin (Cody McMains), pursues The Perfect Girl (Lacey Chabert), all part of “get-laid-before-graduation” pact he made with The Wannabe (Sam Levine) and The Sensitive Guy (Sam Huntington). His friends have their eye on The Foreign Exchange Student (Cerina Vincent), who's being shown around campus by none other than The Pretty Ugly Girl. The Stupid Fat Guy (Ron Lester) is suffering yet another concussion; The Cruelest Girl (Mia Kirshner) is the Popular Jock’s sister.

This film requires virtually no intelligence, and usually feels like a very crude and pointless filmmaking experience. Instead of cleverness, the movie essentially just tosses tons of references on the screen and hopes the viewer will laugh. This is one of those by reflex rather than thought kind of movies. There are some parts in NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE that are so funny I nearly shit my pants, but on the other hand some jokes are so unendurable that I can’t believe anyone ever thought they were funny, let alone good enough to put in a movie. One must not forget about the foreign exchange student, the idea of the horny foreign exchange student being naked the entire time was memorable.

In the end, all these movies are just mindless drivel. Not Another Teen Movie doesn't make any pretense about what it is, but in fact supports the notion that what's on the screen doesn't matter anyway.

The Video

Not Another Teen Movie appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. The film looks terrific. Colors are bold, vibrant and strong with excellent stability. Blacks and contrast is great, giving the image a clear and sharp look. Detail and shadowing are generally excellent. Edge enhancement is present but hardly distracting, and aside from a few compression artifacts the film looked great.

The Audio

Presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. Overall dynamics and fidelity are good, though dialogue can sometimes sound flat. The effects and music primarily came from the front three speakers, at times a few rear discrete effects are noticeable and the mix of rock and pop covers are nicely spread out across all channels.

The Extras

Columbia pulls out all the stops for this Special Edition DVD. They have done a marvelous job of loading the disc with some really fun extras that will keep you busy for quite some time.

Filmmaker’s Commentary: features director Joel Gallen and co-writer Mike Bender. The duo offer up a really breezy, laid-back, and almost monotone discussion about the film and they cover many aspects surrounding it.

Cast Commentary: Hosted by actors Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Jungmann, and Eric Christian Olsen. As with most actor commentaries, it offers up little and congratulates much as the group spends a ton of time laughing, giggling, and talking about how funny the jokes were.

Teen Movie Factoids: The factoids pop up in small, colored windows on different parts of your screen and they contain some rather useless facts on many of the films that Not Another Teen Movie parodies and it relates them to the current scene.

Schools in Session: Once inside, you have 3 different featurettes to choose from starting with “Best Dressed”. “Best Dressed”, running for 9-minutes, deals with the production and costume design for the film and is hosted by Joseph T. Garrity, the film’s Production Designer, and Florence-Isabelle Megginson, the Costume Designer.

Deleted Scenes: We find 18 scenes that didn’t make the final cut. The scenes included are “Areola & Janey Go To Class”, “Janey’s Flashback”, “Barbeque”, “Janey’s Transformation” (Extended Version), “Sadie’s Letter”, “Jake & Father” (Extended Version), “Ricky at Party/Amanda Letter”, “Janey’s Party Dance”, “Pillow Fight”, “Janey’s Bedroom Dance”, “Mitch Teasing Janey”, “Sadie’s Halftime Kiss”, “Jake’s Secret Revealed” (Extended Version), “Musical” (Extended Version), “Ricky at the Prom”, “Bruce and Areola at the Prom”, “Original Ending”, and “Sixteen Candles Addendum”.

Marilyn Manson’s “Tainted Love” – The Unrated Version: In this extra, clocking in at around 9-minutes, we get to see Manson’s unrated video for the cover of “Tainted Love” that is featured on the Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack. The featurette shows us MTV “Making the Video” footage and then cuts into the video/song. The only difference in this video and the one running on MTV was the nudity that was obviously edited out of the version that ran on the MTV. You hardly notice it so pay attention.

The Yearbook: An animated photo gallery of pictures featuring a particular star being highlighted with some music playing in the background. Each actor is featured for 15 to 20-seconds and shown in the “yearbook” are Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Mia Kirshner, Eric Jungmann, Cerina Vincent, Ron Lester, Samm Levine, Deon Richmond, and Joel Gallen. In total, the feature runs for about 7-minutes.

Meet the Cast Promos: 30-second TV spots that highlight individual characters from the film. We can choose from “The Popular Jock”, “The Pretty Ugly Girl”, “The Token Black Guy”, “The Bitchy Cheerleader”, “The Cocky Blonde Guy”, “The Cruelest Girl”, or “The Obsessed Best Friend”. Thankfully, Columbia has added a –PLAY ALL- feature here and we can watch them all in succession. The promos are pretty funny and each was humorous in its own right but a couple of the spots were quite crude and probably had to be edited before they ran on television. Regardless, it’s a nice addition to an already stacked set.

Auditions Montage: This runs for almost 4-minutes. Here we get footage from the audition tapes / nothing great and nothing particularly hilarious.

Cruel Intentions H20: Twenty Year Later.

Joel Gallen’s "Car Ride": Runs for about 4-minutes. The short film stars Jenny McCarthy and is about a girl who is picked up by a serial killer and the two hit it off.

Test Your Teen Movie I.Q.: After an introduction from Joel Gallen, he, along with some of his stars from the film, quiz us on everything from John Hughes films to current day teen outings.

Overall

Not Another Teen Movie doesn't know when enough is enough, and it certainly doesn't have what it takes to stand on its own as a comedy. Should you rent or buy this film? This film contains lots of nudity and gross childish humor that alone will either make it or break it for you.

The film does not have much of a plot in keeping with the films that inspired it. It loses its pacing towards the end of the film, and some of the jokes bomb badly. This film will clearly not win any awards or set standards for quality filmmaking, nonetheless, Not Another Teen Movie has some laughs and if you do not mind crude humor, you may just find yourself laughing along with the film as I did.

One of the biggest treats of the film is trying to discover what film they are spoofing before they move on to the next scene and spotting the number of cameos in the film. It is obvious that the creative forces did not take the film to seriously and if you do not, you just might find yourself having a good time with it.

The DVD offered fine picture quality and a terrific soundtrack, not to mention a nice little roster of extras. Fans of comedies like these should probably give Not Another Teen Movie a look, but this film will not work for a wide audience. Rent with caution.

Not Another Teen Movie could have been a nice visit back down memory lane. As it stands, through a string of gimmicky plots from other storylines, this film has nothing to rely on, it sadly winds up another example of the title it was so cleverly trying to spin on its own. If you’re not up on current teen/pop culture, many of the jokes might fly right over your head. There is definitely some required viewing needed before you watch Not Another Teen Movie, but if you’ve been paying any attention for the past 20-years, you should be just fine and will have a blast with most of the parodies in this film.

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Not Another Teen Movie and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.