Not Another Teen Movie

Plot

In the stereotypical high school community of John Hughes High in Southern California, attractive Priscilla (Jaime Pressly), a popular cheerleader, separates from her talented football star but slacker boyfriend, Jake Wyler (Chris Evans). After Jake discovers that Priscilla is now dating timid and weird Les (Riley Smith) just to spite him, one of Jake's friends, Austin (Eric Christian Olsen), suggests seeking retribution by turning Janey Briggs (Chyler Leigh), a "uniquely rebellious girl", into the prom queen.

Jake attempts to court Janey's love, but faces adversity from his own sister, Catherine (Mia Kirshner), who is sexually attracted to him; Janey's unnoticed admirer and best friend, Ricky Lipman (Eric Jungmann); and memories from his past football career. Catherine eventually assists her brother by slightly altering Janey's appearance (by simply removing her glasses and ponytail), instantly making her drop dead gorgeous.

Meanwhile, Janey's younger brother, Mitch (Cody McMains), and his friends Ox (Sam Huntington) and Bruce (Samm Levine), make a pact to lose their virginity by graduation despite still being in their freshman year. Mitch tries to impress his longtime crush, the beautiful yet perverted Amanda Becker (Lacey Chabert) with a letter professing his love for her. Bruce says that he does not have a chance with her, mockingly stating, "Keep dreaming!"

As the prom draws near, Jake draws infamy among his peers after he fails to lead his football team to victory at the state championship game the year before. The situation is further worsened when Austin tricks Jake into telling Janey about his plan to spite Priscilla by pretending to whisper the secret bet in Janey's ear, causing her to immediately leave Jake in anger. During prom night, Austin and Janey go together; a jealous Jake and Catherine have a dance-off with Austin and Janey, with Catherine dancing in a sexual manner. Janey runs off crying. Meanwhile, Mitch and his friends are having a lousy time at the prom until Amanda arrives and Mitch gives her the letter (to which she responds that she does not have sex with every loser who does such, but will give them handjobs), horny Bruce hooks up with the equally horny international student Areola (unrated version), and Ox later hooks up with Catherine after sharing a romantic and rather odd connection.

Jake is awarded prom king and the principal reads out that the votes for prom queen are tied. Everyone thinks that it is between Janey and Priscilla, but they are shocked to find that Kara (Samaire Armstrong) and Sara Fratelli (Nectar Rose), twins conjoined at the head, win prom queen. During the traditional prom king and queen dance, Janey supposedly left with Austin to go to a hotel.

Jake goes to the hotel room where he finds Austin having wild sex with a girl, but is shocked to find that it is Priscilla and not Janey, while Les videotapes them with his pants down. Austin tells Jake that Janey "ran home to her daddy". Jake coldly punches Austin and Priscilla, knocking them out cold for their part in Janey's humiliation. He then punches Les for "being really weird" (he also punches a plastic bag that happens to be floating next to Les); afterwards he runs to Janey's house only to learn from her father that she is going to Paris for art school.

Jake arrives at the airport and confronts her before she can board the plane, and uses a plethora of clichéd lines from other films (such as She's All That, Cruel Intentions, American Pie, The Breakfast Club, American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate About You, Can't Hardly Wait, and Pretty in Pink) to convince her to stay home in America. His final (and only original) speech suggests they would be better off separated, but Janey mistakenly believes he is quoting The Karate Kid, and she decides to stay with him.

Cast

Many stars of teen films, as well as those from the 1980s, make credited and uncredited appearances. These include:

Box office

The film opened at third place at the US box office taking $12,615,116 in its opening weekend behind Vanilla Sky's opening weekend and Ocean's Eleven's second weekend. At the end of its run, the film had grossed $38,252,284 domestically and $28,216,048 overseas for a worldwide total of $66,468,332.

Critical response

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 28% based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. The site's consensus states: "NAM has some funny moments, but the movie requires the audience to have familiarity with the movies being spoofed and a tolerance for toilet and sexual humor to be truly effective." Metacritic gave the film a score of 32/100 based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of a possible four, and admitted to laughing a few times but not as much as he did for American Pie or Scary Movie. Ebert also criticized the scatological humor. He urged audiences to not waste their time on the film, when in the month of December 2001 there were "21 other promising films" to choose from.

Robin Rauzi of the Los Angeles Times called it "a 90-minute exercise in redefining the word 'gratuitous'" and suggested it is most likely to appeal to fourteen-year-olds – "who of course [are] not supposed to be seeing this R-rated movie". Dennis Harvey of Variety criticized the film for its "overall tendency to mistake mere bad taste for outrageousness, and plain referentiality for satire" but praised Evans, Pressly, and Olsen for giving performances better than the material. He noted that the film follows the model of Scary Movie but lacked the comic finesse of Anna Faris.

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "a crass act" and pointed out the futility of trying to parody films that are already absurd. LaSalle complained that the film too closely copies She's All That, calling it "pathetic" that Not Another Teen Movie is just another formulaic teen movie.

Home media

The R-rated version of the film was released on DVD on April 30, 2002 with the original 89-minute cut. The Unrated Extended Director's Cut was released July 26, 2005 with all of the original special features from the original DVD. The unrated version includes an added 11 minutes to the film, adding up to 100 minutes.

The film has three additional scenes during/after the credits:

Music

The soundtrack for the film was released by Maverick Records and features metal, punk and rock artists from the 1990s and 2000s, mostly covering new wave songs from the 1980s, as well as "Prom Tonight", an original track and parody of Grease.

1. "Tainted Love" (Soft Cell) – Marilyn Manson
2. "Never Let Me Down Again" (Depeche Mode) – The Smashing Pumpkins
3. "Blue Monday" (New Order) – Orgy
4. "The Metro" (Berlin) – System of a Down
5. "But Not Tonight" (Depeche Mode) – Scott Weiland
6. "Message of Love" (The Pretenders) – Saliva
7. "Bizarre Love Triangle" (New Order) – Stabbing Westward
8. "99 Red Balloons" (Nena) – Goldfinger
9. "I Melt with You" (Modern English) – Mest
10. "If You Leave" (OMD) – Good Charlotte
11. "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" (The Smiths) – Muse
12. "Somebody's Baby" (Jackson Browne) – Phantom Planet
13. "Let's Begin" – Bad Ronald
14. "Prom Tonight" – Not Another Teen Movie cast
15. "Kiss Me" - (Sixpence None the Richer)