|
| Foocha! is a non-profit Web site. We do it for kicks, not for cash. If you're interested in writing for the site, click here |
|
 |
| 10 Things I Hate About You |
|
 |
|
| Movies,
Darren Taylor,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F1
|
|
| |
| |
|
There can be only one question with any contemporary reading of Shakespeare: "Does it make the subject matter seem relevant, while retaining if not his dazzling wordplay, then at least some of the strength of characterisation and the emotional power of his plays?"
Where Baz Luhrmann succeeded (with Romeo & Juliet) by throwing a visual feast to underscore the action and illustrate the meaning of Shakespeare's verbal pyrotechnics, director Gil Junger fails on every count in his formulaic teen romance allegedly adapted from "The Taming of the Shrew".
That's "adapted" as in, "Uh, take Padua, make it Padua High School. Hurr, hurr, hurr. Cool." Add a banal script (which like every smartass teenager, thinks its funnier and cooler than it really is), some lazily stereotyped characters (paranoid father, randy counsellor), ideas nicked from the classics of the genre (Animal House, Ferris Bueller) and leads who are about as charasmatic as cancer and in several cases about as pretty. (Excuse me, but teen movies are supposed to be about beautiful adolescents in crisis. Full stop.) Oh, yeah, and "adapted" as in take out all the freakin' SHAKESPEARE. Take out that psychological depth, that genuine compassion for humanity, even take out Shakespeare's top-notch nob gags.
I didn't go expecting to see Shakespeare himself, only a half-decent teenie beanie love pic. But this isn't The Sure Thing for the Nineties. Its not even Pretty in Pink, for Christ's sake. This was done 10 times better, 15 years ago by the likes of Mr. Cusack and Ms. Ringwald, while both Heathers and more recently Clueless depicted teenage angst and peer pressure with more satirical bite.
Believe me, if you only see one movie this summer, make sure its not this.
"Totally Wack" as Will S. (that's Shakespeare, not Smith) might have said (if he'd been alive about now)
UK rating:
12
US rating:
PG
Gill Junger1999, US
Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan
Top Home |
|
|
|
|
