So Undercover – Tom Vaughn (2012) The thing about film reviews is that ultimately every person

So Undercover – Tom Vaughn (2012)

The thing about film reviews is that ultimately every person that watches a movie will watch it from a different perspective. There will always be movies that you love that others will hate, and so I’m always skeptical about people who take movie reviews too seriously. Every person will be able to relate to various characters and situations more than other people, which is surely why a movie like So Undercover was probably more enjoyable to me than, say, E.E. Cummings.

When watching this movie, I wasn’t expecting anything that differs from the usual action teen flick. Indeed from the opening sequences I already noticed that there would be poor character development. I didn’t feel like I knew who this character was.Sure they chucked in some family trouble to make you sympathetic, but that doesn’t tell me much about that character; so for a good majority of the film Miley Cyrus’ lead character felt awfully one dimensional to me.

The action scenes too, to me were rather anticlimactic in that, well, they were over in like 10 seconds. But maybe that’s just my conditioning to other action flicks of recent times.

No, my major criticism of this movie was the gay hairdresser character that helped the tomboy Miley with her ’fashion miracle’. Whether this movie is aimed at teenagers or preteens is as uncertain and confusing to me as I’m sure it was to the people who made it. But either way, sending the message of stereotypes to young children is terrible, and it’s what plenty of tv shows these days are trying to get rid of in the young generation. It wasn’t that this gay character was overly flamboyant, but he was ridiculous to the point where he was wearing lipstick. I don’t know if this was added for comedic purposes or not, but making young children laugh at this character for being different is as bad as the antagonists in the film. And it doesn’t stop there. The filmmakers sacrifice any serious potential morals to send to the audience for cheap comedy: eg. when on girl laughs at an ‘ugly’ boy for wanting to kiss her.

I kept questioning just who the target audience of this film was. There were more adult jokes with condoms, boob jobs, pregnancies and the like, but often other jokes were childish and unthoughtful. It seemed to me like the producers thought it best be aimed at Disney kids who grew up with Miley in Hannah Montana and wanted more; but even then some jokes were cringe-worthy. Miley’s occasional witty comments were all that kept me watching, and I don’t think she did that bad considering the script she had.

Where terrible teen films and genuine teen films differ is in the dimensions of the characters. In So Undercover, too many characters were one dimensional, and when they were given a layer of depth it was often nonexistent by the next scene. Not only that but the screenwriter seems to believe that all girls either fit into the categories of 'tomboy’ or 'dumb blonde’, and any character in between is insignificant.

It’s clear that this movie didn’t have too big a production value, and that’s never anything that makes me dislike a film. But when films like this actually tryto make it look like they have plenty of money, it becomes cheap and loses a sense of heart. I firmly believe that if this movie spent less money on Miley Cyrus and colourful sets, something good could have been made out of the plotline.

Ultimately I felt this movie was just Miss Congeniality meetsHouse Bunny, but given that, the movie wasn’t unenjoyable. Apart from some terrible messages about the church and blackmail to children, and some oxymorons like ’one day I’d like to be in a quality reality tv show’, the film, while incredibly unoriginal, was entertaining. There’s some uneasiness in the way that insignificant problems like boyfriend troubles are juxtaposed with FBI issues, but I assume that the target audience, whatever that is, will find a relatable subplot somewhere.

The love story is a tad forced, as is the token black character, but beneath all that I still found it an enjoyable film to watch. When we say a film is ’good’which specific aspect are we talking about? I mean movies like this are obviously incomparable to other masterpiece coming of age ones like The 400 Blows but there was still an aspect of this movie that made it fun to watch. I don’t know whether I’d say this is a good film, because there is so much wrong with it, but regardless I do not regretspending an hour and a half watching it. It is enjoyable, and I’m sure that that is all the people who are going to watch this will be seeking when they rent the dvd: something fun.

One and a Half/Five
Shaky filmmaking with horrendous messages to children, but the occasional witty lines and lighthearted setting make it a film that is still, essentially, entertaining; and isn’t that all people go to the movies for anyway?