"He's All That" just a vapid gender-swapped makeover

 

He’s All That (2021)

In 1999’s “She’s All That,” Rachel Leigh Cook was the movies’ version of an “ugly duckling” being turned into a swan by Freddie Prinze Jr., to the point that she felt like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.” Except for “that whole hooker thing.” 22 years later, “He’s All That” directly updates that enjoyable teen romantic-comedy, itself a modern variation on “Pygmalion” and “My Fair Lady,” by swapping the genders. So it’s more like 1987’s “Can’t Buy Me Love” and 1999’s “Drive Me Crazy,” only now making one of the characters a vain, shallow social media influencer and being less coy about the existence of LGBTQ characters. Not that “He’s “All That” would even dream of breaking its own formula, but making the boy the shabby-to-chic-and-less-interesting project is pretty much it in the way of a fresh makeover. Otherwise, this is vapid, instantly forgettable teenybopper fare for the TikTok generation. Laney Boggs and Zack Siler, where are you?

TikTok personality Addison Rae makes her film debut as Padgett Sawyer, a California high school influencer seemingly living her best life. First thing in the morning, Padgett puts on a full face of makeup and turns up the bubbly personality while giving beauty tips to her bajillion followers. Off-camera, life isn’t perfect. She does use her influencer money to pay the bills, but she’s so embarrassed by her modest home that her friends think she lives in a ritzy condo high-rise. The illusion completely shatters when Padgett live streams a surprise visit to see her music-famous boyfriend (Peyton Meyer) on the set of his music video, only to find him canoodling with a backup dancer. Because her friend Alden (Madison Pettis) doesn’t stop recording, all of Padgett’s followers get to see her fume (and a snot bubble emerging from her one nostril) and she instantly loses her sponsorship with a fake-nice brand owner (played as stiffly as expected by Kourtney Kardashian). That high-paying sponsorship was her main ticket for college, so what to do? When her friend puts money on whether or not Padgett can take a “loser” and make him the prom king, Padgett settles on Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan). He’s a sullen, too-cool-for-school photographer who loves Kurosawa movies, watching “Blue Bloods” with his grandmother, and riding horses. All she has to do is buy him some snazzy clothes, shave his upper lip, and put some gel in his hair, and voilà, Cameron is a stud! Makeover and all, will Padgett end up falling for the real Cameron and kiss him out of the bearded barley, or is he just a bet? Is he a fucking bet?!

R. Lee Fleming Jr.—the same writer of “She’s All That”—and director Mark Waters (who’s far off from “Mean Girls” here) may change the genders for both parties of the bet, but they also swap the mostly clever wordplay from the first film for insipid lameness. Also, do teens even still care about being crowned prom king and queen? Programmed from the start, “He’s All That” goes exactly where we expect, and that’s fine as long as there’s some fun along the way. But that doesn’t quite happen here. When Padgett and Cameron have their first encounter together, it’s over cleaning up horse shit. There’s a clothing montage, where the actors mug for the camera, before attending a 1920s-themed party, coined as “Drop It Like F. Scott” (as in the author of “The Great Gatsby”). Once it’s time for the prom, there’s also a dance-off to a song that is not by Fatboy Slim, but the principal (Matthew Lillard) does get to comment on the school’s strange traditions. As the film strives to bring home its beauty-on-the-outside message, Padgett’s learned lesson still somehow feels superficial and unearned, being delivered with as much empty-headed insincerity as an influencer’s skin-care promotional story on Instagram. Not helping matters—and you don’t have to be that observant to notice—is the blatant product placement, as Padgett and her pals all drink Core Hydration Water, labels out, and at a party, one character eats and name-drops Pizza Hut and KFC as if we're suddenly watching a commercial.

Addison Rae and Tanner Buchanan share less chemistry together than they do with their other co-stars, and while Rae does have a perky presence, she still seems out of her depth in shaping a true character arc for Padgett. Buchanan at least plays cynical and sweet with skill as Cameron, and for what it’s worth, these actors in their early twenties do actually look like teenagers. Madison Pettis, as Padgett’s bet-making frenemy Alden (the Paul Walker role, if you will), has the most comic timing here, and Annie Jacob and Isabella Crovetti stand out as Cameron’s lesbian best friend Nisha and his precocious younger sister Brin, respectively. Rachel Leigh Cook and Matthew Lillard do have bit parts, she playing Padgett’s hard-working mother and he's the high school principal. While they do strain to make nods to the first film, they aren’t playing those same characters, which only begs the question: what are Laney Boggs and Brock Hudson up to after all these years? Speaking of callbacks and fan service, it wouldn’t be a “She’s All That” remake without “Kiss Me,” the song by Sixpence None the Richer, which does reprise itself here, or at least as a remixed cover by Cyn.

“He’s All That” is kind of cute in spots but ultimately vacuous and lacking true self-awareness when we live in a world with “Not Another Teen Movie,” which heavily spoofed “She’s All That.” Even Netflix’s teen-romance trilogies (“To All the Boys…” and “The Kissing Booth”) burst with more heart and charm than this sunny but plastic and flavorless tart of a movie. It’s clearly designed for teens (and not a 34-year-old gay man), but it makes fans of the 1999 movie feel old and decrepit. “He’s All That,” you are just not all that. With her Diet Coke mouth, Taylor Vaughan might even call you vapor.

Grade: C -

Netflix is releasing “He’s All That” (88 min.) to stream on August 27, 2021.