He's All That (2021) - Film Review

Truth be told, I genuinely thought this was a sequel to the original film before watching and reviewing this film. Rachael Leigh Cook and Matthew Lillard, who starred in the 90s She's All That are actually playing entirely different roles.

So with that in mind, this is essentially like Stephanie Meyer’s Life & Death, a gender-swapped retelling - except with mean girls, influencers and a surprising guest performance from a Kardashian.

Influencer Addison Rae makes her acting debut that has now secured her a multi-film deal with Netflix as teenage girl sets out to give a nebbish classmate (Tanner Buchanan) ultimate high school makeover. The purpose of this is to save her influencer image and win a bet against her antagonistic BFF.

Never have I watched a film where two leads lack even an ounce of chemistry, from the writing to the acting - everything about Buchanan and Rae’s on-screen moments just felt uncomfortably forced. This film barely deviated from its predecessor, except with the incorporation of social media for a new TikTok generation.

Rae’s Padget (which is one of the most unusual choices for a protagonist’s name I’ve ever seen) has a bit of depth that is given no development. Padget uses her influencer status to help her single mum (Rachael Leigh Cook) with bills and seems fairly grounded despite the persona she puts on for her followers and even her friends. Of course, this is rarely explored through the writing or acting. However, for her first leading role, Rae wasn’t the worst casting.

Onto the leading man, this script really struggled with the characterisation of Cameron. He’s a moody loner who gets into fights, but is super sensitive with his photography. He only eats pizza and Doritos, but somehow has a chiselled body underneath those plaid shirts - despite never showing any interest in physical activities. His only extra-curricular activity was the Glee Club, but he’s actually a good fighter when push comes to shove and knows karate.

Pick a struggle, pick a trait. Instead of coming across as a three-dimensional character, he comes across as a bunch of cliches to make a character. Weak character development aside, he lacked any real stage presence.

Aside from Rachel Leigh Cook and an exceptional few actors, this had very amateurish acting from the majority of the cast. Every character was pretty much a teen movie stereotype, that barely deviated from their assigned roles. The most bizarre casting choice was Kourtney Kardasian in a supporting role. Her performance was incredibly monotone - despite the context of the scene - and she showed no range in her acting. This was clearly a name casting, but it wasn’t a good choice. One sub-plot that was good was the positive lesbian romance between Annie Jacob and Myra Mallory’s characters. Both actresses were well cast, had nice chemistry and the film may have been a lot better centred on them instead. It was also refreshing to see no homophobic comments or tragedy attached to this relationship.

There were moments that lacked the emotional impact the writers were clearly aiming for, instead hitting plot points familiar to the teen romance genre. They even added a dance sequence at prom (which was not only ridiculously, but had the weakest build-up to. Two dance tropes that are constantly referenced, but never seen or plays into the plot. They just wanted a dance scene and it was poorly executed) and a goof with bad sound effects over it you’d expect to find in a student film. Despite the budget, there were some juvenile mistakes in this production.

I will commend this production for filming during the pandemic, but the lack of creativity with the source material nor chemistry between the leads made this a flimsy remake that played it very safe. My rating for He's All That is a ★.