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Review

The title Not Another Teen Movie can be pronounced with either excitement or exasperation, and that largely depends on your tolerance for the genre itself. Same goes for the entire movie, a spoof that needles the clichés of the John Hughes/Freddie Prinze, Jr. comedies while also falling prey to the vulgar traps of American Pie and Scary Movie. The plot grafts She's All That to Pretty in Pink, and tacks on assorted stock teen-movie characters Airplane-style, like the naked foreign-exchange student (Pie) and the salacious stepsister (Cruel Intentions). Half the fun is picking up the references, and a cameo at the end by everyone's favorite redhead (Molly, not Lucy) seals the deal. But there are also plenty of uncomfortable gross-out gags (and you have to get very crude to parody Scary Movie 2) that grind the laughter to a halt. When it's dumb, it's very dumb, but when it's clever, it's better.

 -- David Gorgos