Not Another Teen Movie

Five writers and director Joel Gallen built the film on the skeleton of She's All That, with 10 Things I Hate About You, Can't Hardly Wait, Pretty in Pink and Varsity Blues supplying the rest of the plot and a long list of others, from American Beauty and American Pie to Bring It On, Cruel Intentions, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Grease, Jawbreaker, Risky Business, Rudy and Sixteen Candles, supplying the gags. At John Hughes High in Southern California, football star Jake Wyler (Chris Evans) is dumped by cheerleader Priscilla and takes a bet from his friend Austin that he can turn nerdy Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh) into prom queen. His sister Catherine handles the makeover by removing Janey's glasses and ponytail, which is enough. Janey's little brother and his friends make a pact to lose their virginity, the dream girl Amanda Becker enters every scene to a karaoke snippet of "Can't Fight This Feeling," and the prom-queen vote goes to conjoined twins. The airport finale has Jake trying to stop Janey with a string of borrowed speeches until his one original line gets mistaken for a quote from The Karate Kid.

The casting was the joke. Paul Gleason returned as Vice Principal Vernon from The Breakfast Club, Molly Ringwald played the rude flight attendant, Lyman Ward, Ferris Bueller's father, was the out-of-touch dad, Mr. T delivered the wise-janitor speech from Rudy with the A-Team theme underneath, Melissa Joan Hart taught the slow clap in an uncredited bit, Sean Patrick Thomas was "The Other Token Black Guy," and Good Charlotte played the prom. The score was contemporary covers of 1980s pop and new wave; Ben Folds co-wrote the Grease parody "Prom Tonight," and Marilyn Manson's cover of "Tainted Love" led the soundtrack as its single.

Sony released it on December 14, 2001, where it opened third with $12.6 million and finished at $66.5 million worldwide on a $15 million budget. Critics hated it: 32 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a C-plus CinemaScore. Roger Ebert admitted to laughing a few times, less than at American Pie or Scary Movie, and told readers there were 21 more promising films that December. The Los Angeles Times called it a ninety-minute exercise in redefining the word gratuitous, most likely to appeal to the fourteen-year-olds who were not supposed to be seeing an R-rated movie, and the San Francisco Chronicle thought it pathetic that a parody of She's All That ended up as just another formulaic teen movie. Variety singled out Evans, Jaime Pressly and Eric Christian Olsen for playing above the material. An unrated cut ten minutes longer arrived on DVD in 2005.