MOVIE REVIEW: ‘What a Girl Wants’ is recycled and unoriginal
“What a Girl Wants” could have been named “What a Girl Needs:” A better script, a better story and a better movie to call her own.
Combine “The Princess Diaries,” “The Parent Trap” and “My Fair Lady” and you have this sweet little pre-teen romp overseas. This is nothing more than a perfect example of Hollywood recycling everything from storyline to characters. At least they do recycle, right? That’s a good thing. Well, maybe not in this case, the first time in history that recycling is wrong. Damn Hollywood and their uncreative top brass.
So, “What a Girl Wants” is the sappy story of an American girl who wants to know who her father is. After her free-spirited mother doesn’t say much about him, she decides to take a trip over the big pond by herself to find daddy. Here’s the kicker – Daddy doesn’t even know he has a child. Bet you couldn’t see that one coming.
Oh yeah, and while she is in England, she meets and has a romance with the sweet British teen musician. Now isn’t that just sweet all the way around?
As you can probably surmise, I thought the movie was trite and boring. There was nothing to make me think, nothing to really entertain me and nothing to make me glad that six bucks had been spent to get me in the doors. And the really sad thing is that I usually like teen movies. I own several and I watch them frequently. But in the end, this was a bad one of those.
Now that I have that out of my system, there were a couple of things about this movie that made it bearable. Not good, but bearable. The first was the star, Amanda Bynes. She is charming and innocent. You can’t help but love her. And then in the same breath, you feel bad for her. Poor material equals poor movie, and her name is all over this one.
She is much better than the material lets her be, which is sad but true. She could have been given something more than a little “let’s find my real dad” flick. But she is young, and her agents probably thought this was a good move. Bring all those teeny bopper kids into theater to see one of their favorite Nickelodeon stars.
The second redeeming thing about his movie was the addition of Colin Firth as her stuffy Brit father. But then again, he has proven himself time and time again to be one of the best British actors on the market. He is smooth and sly and all things we Americans think the Brits are. But you couldn’t help but feel his character was somehow Julie Andrews from “The Princess Diaries” in a man’s body. But then, we have already covered the recycled characters at the first of this little review.
So, would I recommend this movie? Nope. Not unless you are about 9 and have nothing better to spend your parents’ money on. Really, it’s spring, and the weather is nice. Go outside and do something that will actually make you feel better about life, and leave the script recycling to Hollywood.
Justin Berry is a local actor turned movie critic. Comments can be sent to justinsb26@hotmail.com.