SHE’S THE MAN: 3 STARS
Here’s what I learned while watching She’s the Man:
1. The easiest and most convincing way to change your sex from female to male is with a length of elastic bandage, a wig and fake eyebrows.
2. When the twin you have been impersonating is a head taller, a different sex and sounds nothing like you, no one will be able to tell you apart.
3. It is possible for soccer players to go days on end without taking a shower or visiting the locker room.
4. And… none of the above matters when you have a lead actress as likeable as Amada Bynes.
Like 10 Things I Hate About You from a few years ago She’s the Man is a riff on a Shakespearean play—Twelfth Night—updated to modern day and teaming with teenagers. Here Amanda Bynes plays a tomboy who lives to play soccer, but her uptight school won’t let girls play. When her brother hightails it to Europe for two weeks she hits on the idea of disguising herself as him, going to his school and joining their soccer team so she can have the satisfaction of beating her old school in the opening game of the season. Of course she didn’t count on falling for her roommate, the hunky jock Duke. Her ruse is almost discovered several times—like when she’s in drag, out with the boys and her cell phone goes off with Barbie Girl as her ring tone—but no one seems to catch on.
She’s the Man’s humor is so broad it makes Benny Hill seem like Noel Coward and Bynes never misses a chance to bug her eyes out or take a pratfall but her energetic and likeable performance saves what could have been an extremely tiresome movie. Good support from Arrested Development’s David Cross as the goofy principal and soccer coach Vinnie Jones should help keep older audience members interested.
She’s the Man isn’t one of the great gender-bending movies. It’s no Boys Don’t Cry, or even Bosom Buddies, heck, it’s barely Just One of the Guys but worth a few laughs for tweens.
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