Reimagined Shakespeare Marathon Movie 4: She's the Man (2006)

There are three major types of plays that Shakespeare wrote that I can think of from the top of my head.  There are the historical plays, the tragedies, and the comedies.  So far in the Reimagined Shakespeare Marathon, I’ve seen two movies based on tragedies and one movie based on a comedy.  Make that two movies based on Shakespearean comedies.

The fourth movie in the Reimagined Shakespeare Marathon is, was, and will always be She’s the Man.  This is a teenage comedy based on the comedy Twelfth Night.  The plot of the movie is kind of simple.  Girl pretends to be boy to prove that girls are good at soccer; meanwhile, she falls in love with a soccer player who is portrayed by a former male stripper.  The plot does have a few other bits but none of them help the movie to be anything more than bad.

Before I get into everything that I don’t like in She’s the Man, I would like to mention the one thing I did like.  Vinnie Jones is quite simply a fun guy to watch.  It doesn’t matter what I’m watching.  He amuses me in any movie of television show that he appears in.  Eurotrip?  He’s great.  X-Men: The Last Stand?  Who cares if he is or isn’t good for the part?  He’s Vinnie Jones.  I don’t care what he does.  He always entertains me.  Now onto everything else.

The jokes in She’s the Man are brutally unfunny.  I know there is supposed to be comedy within the fact that a female is pretending to be male.  That’s not what this movie does.  This movie takes it to another level.  The comedy not only comes from Amanda Bynes acting like a guy, but from her doing it very poorly.  This led to very poorly written jokes that made me groan instead of laugh.  It made me feel depressed that this kind of comedy made it into theaters.

I think the biggest flaw in the movie is Amanda Bynes.  If I hadn’t seen her in a couple of other things, I would seriously be questioning how she became a star at the time.  Her acting is, at most, passable in this movie.  That’s not the major flaw with her being cast.  Amanda Bynes cannot look or sound anything like any guy that I’ve met.  She looks like a short haired girl through the entire movie, and her man voice still sounds feminine.  The amount of reality suspension in terms of gender believability or stupidity of characters is comparable to White Chicks.

I don’t know what Twelfth Night was like.  That is one of the many Shakespeare works that I have never read.  I would hope that the comedy within that is better than the comedy in this adaptation.  She’s the Man is very forced in comedy and puts it on screen with a very heavy hand.  Not a laugh is to be found in the humour that is presented.

She’s the Man will not go down as a classic Shakespearean based movie.  By this point, it is likely to be mostly forgotten by all but those who sat through this trauma, or those that really love Amanda Bynes.  There isn’t anything to keep it relevant.  It’s a hollow comedy.  That’s all I have about this one.

Next up shall be Forbidden Planet from 1956.  I have never seen it before, so I’m not quite sure what to expect.  Hopefully it’s at least the slightest bit entertaining.  It would be a good way to follow up She’s the Man.