The Hot Chick Review

"The Hot Chick" reviews

Movie

The Hot Chick

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-02-16 16:09:07

Rating

1.5/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

Rob Schneider's latest foray into the ridiculous is one very long penis joke. That is, one penis joke that is very long. Er, one long joke about a penis or two.

Story

Cruel-yet-popular high school cheerleader Jessica (Rachel McAdams) steals a pair of ancient earrings from a shop and gets more than she bargained for when she loses one--and petty thief Clive (Rob Schneider) finds it and puts it on. Jessica's body turns into Clive's and vice versa, resulting in some 101 minutes of gender-bending physical comedy. Although it doesn't take Jess long to figure out she's a man (the morning's ablutions make that abundantly clear), it does take a while to work out exactly why it happened. In the meantime, Jess is able to convince her friend April (Anna Faris) that underneath that hairy exterior beats the heart of a cheerleader, and with the help of the Honey Bees cheerleading squad and even a few former enemies, they set about solving the mystery and getting Jessica's hot chick body back before the full moon wanes. There's a lot at stake, including the cheerleading championships and the love of Jessica's quarterback boyfriend, Billy (Matt Lawrence).

Acting

As usual, Schneider is up for anything in The Hot Chick, and you can't help but admire the guy for his boldness. I mean, he wears short shorts and Powerpuff Girls T-shirts for heaven's sake--never mind the striptease scene at the Pole Cat Lounge late in the film. But let's face it: funny is as funny does, and it's possible to try too hard. That's what happens here. A couple good jokes are milked, and milked, and milked again. Granted, they're laugh-out-loud funny the first time, and maybe even the second time, too. But by the third and fourth times, the virgin-cheerleader-with-a-penis shtick has gone a little, well, limp.

Direction

Written by Schneider and director Tom Brady (The Animal), The Hot Chick script has as lame a plot trajectory as you'd expect, and the outtakes shown during the closing credits of the film indicate that Schneider sort of made up the dialogue as he went along. Most of the business seems contrived, especially any scenes involving more than three or four people. Worse still, when it's not compulsively striving for humor, the film sinks deeply into the sappy cheese of teen comedy; I didn't count the number of times Jessica/Clive and April talked about what great friends they are, but they may well outnumber the penis references.