Another rip-off of a classic teen romantic comedy, He’s All That lowers everyone’s hope for a quality Netflix movie about the new generation.
Warning: This article is not intended to promote hate towards Addison Rae or the movie He’s All That, purely stating my opinion.
New York Times claims, “This gender-flipped reboot of She’s All That lazily rehashes the original but without its endearing weirdness.”
The plot of the movie is a cookie cutter version of every cliché high school movie rom com. The movie follows a popular girl who takes on a bet to turn a dork into a prom king. The movie consists of young stars attempting to act by making weird faces to make their characters seem quirky.
On the flip side, “Rae, whose acting talents may be best described as emerging, is still sunny and warm enough in the role that Padgett comes off as overeager rather than loathsome,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Addison Rae, a Tik Tok personality, stars in the Netflix original movie, He’s All That. Rae tragically plays the innocent all-American schoolgirl who is a social media influencer. Her sponsor is none other than Kourtney Kardashian.
Along with Rae, Tanner Buchanan, star of Cobra Kai, is deemed the outcast with a weird knack for horses and photography. Even though he has an eight pack and is not conventional ugly, Padgett must him makeover to become the hot and popular prom king.
According to The Daily Beast, “What makes him a hopeless loser, apparently, are his long hair, his taste for photography and flannels.”
The more attractive male character subjectively, Jordan Van Draanen, played by Peyton Meyers, is the high school popstar with his hit single “Mean Streets of Pali,” which is not a horrible song if you do not listen to the lyrics.
The cast of the movie is almost as terrible as the plot. While this is supposed to be a remake of the 90s classic movie, it does a poor job of adding modern twists, such as the prom committee hiring a kid to DJ the dance or the fact that everyone in the movie is obsessed with Tik Tok.
Senior Emma Sweeney comments, “He’s All That is so bad it’s funny. It was weird seeing Madison Pettis as a side character, who is an actual actress, compared to Addison Rae, who is just a Tik Tok personality.
While Addison is the one of the most popular creators, besides Charli D’amelio, but that does not give her the talent or expierence to go into the acting industry.
According to the Guardian, the script by R Lee Fleming Jr, “is uninspiring, trying very hard to appear like it’s breezy, probably popular in the sense of cultural saturation but appealing deeply to no one.”
To make matters worse, there is a lot controversary that the filming of this movie caused a shutdown of a major COVID-19 testing center.
“Though Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti promptly shifted into damage control mode and tweeted that they would be reopening the testing center at Union Station, it was an undeniably bad look to prioritize a Tik Tok celebrity’s film shoot in the midst of a devastating pandemic,” according to The Daily Beast.
This movie follows the trend of Tik Tokers or more broadly speaking social media influencers trying to act or record a single to boost their likes or get more publicity. Most of the time, these attempts flop. For example, Rae and Dixie D’amelio’s first songs blew up and then turned into memes.
He’s All That is worth watching if you are bored and need a good laugh or if you like watching cringy movies.
