BUY THE DVD:
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SYNOPSIS:
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an attractive and popular teenager who is mean spirited toward others, finds herself in the body of an older man, and must find a way to get back to her original body.
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MOVIE FACT:
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was rated R until the producers made some edits to get it down to a pg-13 rating.
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RATING:
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one out of four possible stars
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To say that The Hot Chick is the kind of movie that strives to display the crudest, basest, most gross-out humor known to man is probably an understatement. The laughs in this film come from much more immature minds. That the film was created for a very specific type of demographic is also an understatement and probably doesn't even have to be explained. The fact that the filmmakers chose to create a film that would appeal strictly to eighteen to twenty-four year old males isn't so unusual (just look at any number of gross-out movies released each year: American Pie, Not Another Teen Movie).
Although it might be easy to let the filmmakers get off the hook with the "it's made for a certain audience" hook, the fact that the jokes aren't really that funny, even when taking into account its intended audience, makes this film a hard one to sit through in the theater. Especially since the audience will have seen the best jokes in the movie already during the trailer. It's fairly common for a film to include its best material in the trailer, but seldom does a film include all its best parts in the trailer. And since a standard feature film trailer is approximately two and a half minutes long, it doesn't speak well for the filmmakers that in an hour and a half of screen time, they were only able to pull of a couple of minutes worth of jokes.
Though credit must be given where credit is due. Adam Sandler does have a few scenes not shown in the trailer that will probably garner some laughs from viewers. It might be easy to say that The Hot Chick is a movie best enjoyed while drunk and passed out, so that the gaping plot holes, and improbability of the whole situation are missed, but then you'd miss Adam Sandler doing his impression of a weed-smoking white Rasta who plays the bongo drums like an expert. But wait, that sequence is in the trailer. So sleeping through the film probably wouldn't be such a bad idea.
It might sound harsh to pass such a brutal judgment on this picture, but getting away with half-assed comedy and lame and unbelievable story lines just shouldn't be complimented. Although twenty year old drunk males may laugh at the feminine way Rob Schneider prances around in women's clothing and nail polish, the routine soon becomes tiring. Co-stars Rachel McAdams, a relative new-comer playing the high school student Schneider's character switches bodies with, and Anna Faris, of Scary Movie fame, have between them a few laughs scattered throughout the film.
And supporting actors Sam Doumit, Paige Peterson, Megan Kuhlmann, and Maritza Murray each have a few humorous moments between them, playing the various wacky high school students Schneider must interact with. But no one actress or actor is a real standout. And though Schneider's name is the only one above the title, he certainly does not carry the most laughs. If anything, the screenwriters were lucky they included a fairly large cast, as any blame for the picture can be spread around. But assigning blame to any of the characters in this movie would actually require mental work on the part of the viewer, and drunk twenty-year-olds probably don't have that type of mental faculty.
One of the most ironic things about this film is that Rob Schneider continues to insist on making films that are hardly worthy of the type of comedy he's capable of. After a successful run on "Saturday Night Live," one wonders why the type of comedies he has involved himself in haven't grown up some more. Fellow SNL alum, Adam Sandler has made a modest few ventures into more serious comedies and dramas and has gained fans because of his efforts. One would think Schneider would aspire to improve the quality of his roles as well.
Probably one of the only successes in this movie is the fact that the director and editor kept the final product down to a very respectable time. Clocking in at just around one hundred minutes (with the credits), the film doesn't hold on to any more celluloid than is absolutely necessary. It might be prudent to say that although Schneider has had moderate success with his rather crude cinematic offerings, the level of comedy in each successive film has decreased somewhat. While Deuce Bigalow was by no means a Shakespearean triumph, it was still better than Schneider's next project as The Animal. And though The Animal is hardly worthy of any praise, that film actually seems more intelligent than The Hot Chick.
Review by Kelsey Wyatt.
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