On DVD: Picture This! is So Cookie-Cutter It Hurts

Man oh man. Sometimes you find a film in an out-of-the-way place that belongs exactly where you found it. Like a slug crawling under a rock or a spider in the attic, you can never be too surprised when you find it there. Such is the case with this week's direct-to-cable-then-immediately-dumped-to-video offering Picture This!, on DVD this week from MGM. Everything you'd expect and nothing you wouldn't, this is a movie that feels like it was written to be a studio film, only to find rejection and the eventual trickle down to television. Sadly, star Kevin Pollak and director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Critters, Mighty Ducks, The Three Musketeers, Mr. Holland's Opus, Rock Star) fail to elevate the material above of the flaws of the script.

This is your typical 'tween-aimed teen film in which an extraordinarily unpopular and unattractive girl (High School Musical's Ashley Tisdale) magically discovers that the application of a little make-up while subbing out her glasses for contacts proves to make her "hotter" (as the kids say these days) than the prettiest girl in school. This draws the attention of the hottest boy in school, sending the girl on a wild adventure while the Mean Girls try to destroy her chances at happiness. The big twist here is that as part of her big birthday wish, her father (the aforementioned Pollak) buys her a new top of the line video/camera phone that he insists on using as a spying and parental enforcement tool instead. Total bummer.

How will it end? Will Mandie (yes, with an "ie") thwart the mean girls and score a date with the uberhawtie? Will her dad learn to back off and respect her boundaries? What the hell do you think? This movie is so painfully predictable that you could set your watch to its plot twists. It suffers from three primary flaws, each preventing it from being what it should be. The first flaw is built into the plot and is the crux of the whole movie. While Mandie is on her wild adventure behind her dad's back, she has to constantly find new ways to convince him that she is at her friends house studying and not at a mall or in a club or, you know, on stage performing in a battle of the bands rock concert ... that kind of thing.

Trouble is, the logic used in these instances stretches the notion of the suspension of disbelief beyond reasonable levels. At some point he is going to ask her to turn the phone away from the "television" and see that she's really in a smoke-filled club and not watching a So You Think You Can Dance video.

Secondly, the film is all about short cuts. They beg, borrow and steal pretty much every character quirk, plot device and concept from other, better movies and then use them only to serve the big idea that was their first problem to begin with. There's a lot of stuff going on that you only get because, well, you've had it explained to you before in a dozen other films and you've figured out by now that if the hottest guy in school takes pictures when no one is looking, then he is deep, meaningful and longs for something bigger than his rich-boy life allows. But don't expect them to ever, you know, actually show you that.

And all these shortcuts lead to the third problem. You don't particularly like the heroine. Okay, so she works in a pet store and her dad can only afford a large two-story house in the wealthy suburbs rather than a mansion in the hills. The only thing separating her from the mean girls in the film is that she used to wear glasses. She's still stealing someone's boyfriend. She's still worried about her appearance over all else. And worst of all, she believes all her problems can be solved by looking good, having the coolest phone and dating the perfect guy.

Not exactly what I look for in a high school underdog comedy.

This thing is so cookie-cutter it hurts. There wasn't a single moment I really enjoyed or one that even felt remotely authentic. This is NOT the kind of film I'd have expected out of Stephen Herek. Sure the guy's had a bad run the last few years -- but there are two things he's always done well. Underdog stories and high school-aged characters. Here he had both and told a story that didn't seem to understand either.

Should you let your daughters watch it? Sure, I don't see why not. There are some sexual references -- but nothing racier than prime time television -- and the overall theme of staying virginal and the fear of becoming a one-night stand isn't the worst message to send your little girl.

I'm not a fan of the current trend toward the pro-consumerism, conformist, ideal-pretty-girl themes prevalent in a lot of 'tween-aimed entertainment. But I get it. It's just the "princess" thing brought into the modern day. But me, I just long for the John Hughes-era, It's okay to be different themes I grew up with. While Picture This! might have blatantly stolen from it, Sixteen Candles it ain't. Your daughters might like it, but this is one you can probably just leave them to watch with their friends.

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