Teen rom-com remake ‘He’s All That’ isn’t all that
Presumably, the decision to greenlight a gender-switched remake of teen movie “She’s All That” was seen as an unmissable opportunity — a chance to redress some of the more problematic aspects of the 1999 original while, at the same time, making a movie that would resonate with young viewers who have grown up on a steady diet of streaming platforms, social media and influencer culture.
Disappointingly, “He’s All
That” feels about as tone deaf to younger audiences as its possible to get, which is a surprise, given that the film is helmed by “Mean
Girls” director Mark Waters. The 2021 version’s plot reads like a tick-box exercise of things that middle-aged people assume young people like — Instagram influencer Padgett Sawyer (Addison
Rae) loses her biggest sponsor (a cringe-worthy cameo by Kourtney Kardashian) when a live stream of her breakup with her dancer boyfriend causes her to become the laughing stock of her school.
Desperate to regain her social standing, she takes on a bet to perform the ultimate makeover — transforming antisocial rebel Cameron (Tanner Buchanan) into the prom king.
Bafflingly, nobody seems to have told writer R. Lee Fleming Jr that simply gender swapping the roles does nothing to dilute the superficial, grossly insensitive tone of the movie. As was the case in “She’s All That,” the premise is that people will only notice and respect you once you’ve been given a makeover — perhaps someone should have told Water and Fleming that simply inverting the problem in 2021 does nothing to redress it.
No amount of opportunistically shoehorned virtue signaling can rescue “He’s All That” from this singular, fatal flaw. Nor can cameos from original stars Rachael Leigh Cook and Matthew Lillard, or the fleeting use of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. Even a final act twist that attempts to thumb its nose at teen movie tropes feels vacuous and cynically contrived.
Sometimes films age badly. It would have been far kinder to simply let “She’s All That” fade into dated obscurity. Instead, this distasteful remake highlights the original’s flaws and introduces a bunch of new ones.