- Cat.no: VCD 0029
- Cert: 12
- Running time: 92 minutes
- Year: 1998
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 17 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Trailer, Cast/Director Interviews, Behind-the-scenes,Yearbook Photo Library
Director:
- Robert Iscove
(Boys and Girls, The Flash, Murder in my Mind, Trapped and Deceived)
Producers:
- Peter Abrams, Robert E. Levy and Richard N. Gladstein
Screenplay:
- R. Lee Fleming Jr.
Music:
- Stewart Copeland
Cast:
- Zack Siler: Freddie Prinze Jr (I Know What You Did Last Summer 1 & 2, Target for Rage)
Laney Boggs: Rachael Leigh Cook (18th Angel, Family Rescue, Strike, TV: Dawson’s Creek)
Brock Hudson: Matthew Lillard (Dead Man’s Curve, Hackers, Love Sucks, Scream, Senseless)
Taylor Vaughn: Jodi Lyn O’Keefe
She’s All Thatis what Freddie Prinze Jr is set to find out in this high-school teen comedywhich bases itself on the well-worn thread of turning an ugly duckling into a swanamongst the class divide of the cool crowd and the nerds, but comedies don’t have torely on 100% originality to draw you in and make you laugh a lot.
Freddie plays Student Body President Zack Siler. He has it all – the looks, the attentionand the girl of his dreams in Taylor Vaughn (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe), unless she dumpshim having met someone else in the form of the over-the-top Brock Hudson (Scream‘smaiming madman Matthew Lillard) who lives his life as one of the students onMTV’s “The Real World“.
Now all alone and in the last term of school, he’s going to have a problem taking adate to the prom when he doesn’t have one. Being the cock-sure cool and confident type,he bets his best friend Dean (Paul Walker) that he can take any girl and turn herinto a super-babe. Dean accepts on the understanding that he gets to pick the girl andselects the toughest nut to crack: Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) – nerd ofthe century, connosieur of the weirdest art forms and wearer of glasses that make NHSspectacles look like a fashion item.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out how the film will end, coupled with the higherechelons of the social scale expectedly detracting Laney from joining their elite,but it’s an engaging watch finding out and the transformation of our heroine is definitelya sight for sore eyes, as anyone who saw her posing nude in an episode of “Dawson’sCreek” will testify to.
Comic timing is in abundance here and aside from the two leads there’s able supportat times from from Kevin Pollak, currently partnering Arnie in End of Days,as Laney’s “Jeopardy“-loving father, Kieran Culkin, whose screen career seemsto be heading in the right direction as opposed to his brother Macauley, as Laney’s youngerbrother Simon, and Matthew Lillard never seems to catch a breath when he’s onscreen.
There’s also a couple of singer-turned-actor-wannabes known in their professionalcapacities as Lil’ Kim and Usher, the latter only having one big hitin the UK with “You Make Me Wanna…” (No.1, January 1998).
Finally, there’s a brief, silent cameo from Buffy-goddess SarahMichelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr.’s co-star inI Know What You Did Last Summer.
Once again, VCI do themselves proud. Bar the occasional fleck on the printthere’s no flaws with this anamorphic 16:9 picture, reproduced in theoriginal theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 (not “16:9” as stated on the back cover).The colours in the print are as lush and inviting as the purple amaray casethe disc comes in and the average bitrate is a superb 7.63Mb/s, often peakingat 9Mb/s.
The sound is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and the soundtrack includes thefilm’s signature tune “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richerwhich reached No.4 in the UK charts last May, plus a number of othersincluding Fatboy Slim‘s Rockafeller Skank and The Wiseguys‘Oh La La. There’s nothing that particularly stands out here but thedialogue and ambience are the sound quality’s main benefactors.
Extras : Chapters & Trailer :17 chapters, 16 for the film and one separate for the end credits. Mostscenes are covered here so it’s a fair number. The original theatricaltrailer is included. Languages/Subtitles :English Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English for the hard of hearing. And there’s more… :Shooting The Movie brings you six minutes in the life of thecast and crew as they made the film and Yearbook Photo Libraryprovides 20 still pictures from the film, mainly of the two leads, but whilethis doesn’t work on the version 3.0 drivers of my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM, theversion 2.0 drivers have no problem whatsoever. Finally all the cast worth amention, as well as the director, get a couple of minutes to say their piecein the Interviews section. Menu :A static menu with options to start the film, select a scene or visitthe extras menu, with the tuneful “Kiss Me” playing in the background.
An engaging and endearing film, a picture quality that while not perfectis streets ahead of most releases including the Region 1 disc which isn’tanamorphic and some decent extras (another point scored against the USrelease) make this a disc worthy of anyone’s attention.FILM CONTENT : ****PICTURE QUALITY: ****½SOUND QUALITY: ****EXTRAS: ***——————————-OVERALL: ****
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000
Check outVCI‘s andFilm Four‘sWeb site.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.