Stupid 'Hot Chick' just can't get it right

Friday, December 13, 2002

By PAUL WEST
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Consider this review a public service announcement. "The Hot Chick" is a comedy that surpasses stupidity, and not in entertaining ways.

MOVIE REVIEW

THE HOT CHICK

DIRECTOR: Tom Brady

CAST: Rob Schneider, Rachel McAdams, Anna Faris, Michael O'Keefe

RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes

RATING: PG-13, for language, crude and sex related humor, and drug references

WHERE: Alderwood 7, Auburn Cinema 17, Crossroads, Everett 9, Factoria, Galleria, Gateway 8, Issaquah 9, Lewis & Clark, Longston, Meridian 16, Monroe 12, Mountlake 9, Redmond Town Center, Renton Village, Varsity, Woodinville 12

GRADE: F

It's truly discouraging to realize how much money "Saturday Night Live" graduate Rob Schneider receives for prancing around on camera like a dangerously caffeinated idiot while dozens of promising, struggling young actors and filmmakers are left waiting tables.

Like all of Schneider's high-concept movies, "The Hot Chick" boasts an impossible premise. Here, cruel high-school cheerleader Jessica Spencer (Rachel McAdams) awakens one morning in the form of -- you guessed it -- quirky, awkward Rob Schneider (don't ask why).

For the bulk of the film's running time, Schneider -- as the woman trapped inside a man -- stumbles around in lowbrow situations and a series of formulaic plot contrivances that hit the same, tired notes.

Ugh. The concept has been done countless times before. Anyone who has seen the trailer has seen the movie and has had the film's big-star cameo (by another "SNL" alum) spoiled.

Amazingly, co-writer and director Tom Brady's resume includes writing for TV's "The Simpsons"(!), but this film lacks that series' inspired zaniness or wit. The humor is entirely conposed of below-the-belt repartee and offensively relies on gay and ethnic stereotypes (the PG-13 rating is a joke).

Worse, the female trapped inside Schneider's body is unlikable from the start, giving us nobody to root for or care about. The supporting performers (I'll spare their names) don't register because the film allows them only to either react to Schneider's buffoonery or act like idiots themselves.

Unlike other "SNL" alums like Mike Myers, whose "Austin Powers" series is a clever, inspired creation, the 39-year-old Schneider simply plays a note, not a character. He's also too obvious a choice for this role (Jack Black or Nathan Lane would have been home runs), and his windup-toy acting style is so predictably frantic it quickly grows annoying. Very annoying.