She's The Man

A Shakespearian plot has served several teen movies well in the past (10 Things I Hate About You, Othello), but She's The Man proves to be a less successful example of the genre. The plot of 'Twelfth Night' isn't necessarily more troublesome to subsume into a modern-day setting, but Amanda Bynes' uneven performance as Viola does little to give credibility to the plot.

While a convincing enough boy in repose, her exaggerated swagger and undulating voice would never fool classmates in her brother Sebastian's new school, at which she's in drag, pretending to be him in order to play boys' soccer. Some of Viola's struggles are faintly comic: she rushes to cover up her admiration of a cute pair of girls' shoes, and has to come up with an inventive means of avoiding an initiating strip. But by highlighting Viola's difficulties with her disguise, the weight of entertainment falls firmly on the comedy rather than believable romance.

Her roommate Duke's (Tatum) attraction to her both as a girl and - implicitly - as a boy is neglected and hard to swallow, and his jock-like manner is at odds with the film's message about female independence. Even if the film does attempt to remedy this, it's too little too late. "Why do you always talk about girls in such graphic terms?" he asks Viola (as Sebastian), suddenly revealing his supposed softer side. And while the script uses some of Shakespeare's misunderstanding-led story to enjoyable effect, it neglects subplots such as Malvolio's scheming to its detriment.