Movie Review: You Again

Kristen Bell, right, and Odette Yustman in <i>You Again</i>. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 2/5
Verdict: Cast tries hard, but lame script

If there was a list of every element a successful high school movie should include, then You Again would have it pretty much covered.

There are mean cheerleaders, ugly ducklings, musical numbers, the normal stereotypical cliques, and life-long feuds.

Literally every high school cliche has been thrown at this lacklustre comedy, although little of the story is set at high school as it is more about the ongoing impact of the experience. Not that this stops any of the characters from behaving like immature teenagers.

The main victim here is Marni (Bell), the school loser-made-good who discovers her brother Will (James Wolk) is about to marry Joanna (Odette Yustman), the girl who made her school years hell.

Not only is Marni faced with her arch-enemy, but her mother Gail (Curtis) must face also her own ex-best friend and arch-rival from high school, Joanna's aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver).

Bell might be tiny but like almost all the cast she's all about big, overacted comedy and it doesn't help that her character in this film is single, successful and slightly clumsy; almost exactly the same as he character Beth in her previous rom-com, When in Rome.

Facing your nemesis doesn't bring out the best in either Marni or Gail, who relive their younger days by breaking into "cheers", throwing people into swimming pools and launching into plate-throwing fights.

It's all good fun, but never funny, and you're not going to break a sweat picking a team to support as no character really appeals enough to emotionally invest in.

You Again is perfectly harmless entertainment, but desperately in need of an edge. It never gets nasty enough to be an outright war between any of these old enemies, it just gets sillier and sillier as it limps towards its inevitable, feelgood ending.

LOWDOWN

Cast: Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Andy Fickman
Running time: 105 mins
Rating: G

-TimeOut