Starring: Alexa Vega, Mika Boorem, Scout Taylor-Compton

3 out of 10 stars

Anachronistic and simplistic, Sleepover is a movie that, above all, begs the question: do today's teenagers still listen to the Spice Girls? In bending over backwards to create a blissfully innocent idea of a slumber party, the makers of Sleepover frantically grab for a number of stale media-created concepts of "What It's Like To Be A Teenager Today," and instead wind up with "What It Was Like To Be A Teenage Ten Years Ago." And in borrowing liberally from teen classic Sixteen Candles, by putting its heroine into a wild night of crazy antics that result in her being plopped into the lap of her older dream boy, they also add a dollop of "Twenty Years Ago" as well. With all the plot borrowings from the 80s and the cultural trappings of the 90s, the things these teenagers do don't seem to be grounded in any kind of contemporary reality whatsoever. Well, they do use cell phones. And the internet – well, some kind of fantasyland internet. If you can find me a personals site like "Datesafe.com" where potential suitors are bestowed with a blue ribbon designating them as "safe" for dating, please let me know – it would help my social life immensely.

The Molly Ringwald of this tale is cutie-pie Alexa Vega, who as beleaguered heroine Julie is the film's one saving grace and its sole source of energy. Putting together a slumber party on the last night of junior high school, she invites a trio of girls: the feisty best friend, the shy fat girl, and the vaguely written girl. Ambushed by popular girl Stacie (aren't they all named Stacie?), the quartet is challenged to a scavenger hunt against their rival clique, with the prize being a coveted lunch spot all during their first year at high school. Implausible, semi-manic hijinks ensue as Julie and friends race to get their booty – in one case it's almost literal booty, as Julie has to snag the boxer shorts of her longtime crush, Steve (Sean Faris, a Tom Cruise lookalike with a fetching mole). The fact that Julie spies Steve naked while grabbing his shorts is blithely overlooked, as is the fact that she sneaks into a 21-and-over club to get a picture of an adult man buying her a drink (good thing it turns out to be her teacher, who aids and abets the gals in their pursuit!). Throughout, life lessons are dispensed, crushes are made and broken, a finale takes place at a school dance, and an assortment of wan supporting characters traipse through providing ostensible comic support.

Despite its flirting with underage nudity and drinking, Sleepover presents a shellacked, soft-focus view of adolescence that hasn't been seen since the days before John Hughes introduced actual profanity into the teen movie genre. While the low-expectations plot machinations themselves are negligible and somewhat forgivable for their predictability, there is a bit of sadness in watching a number of talented adults flail about miserably. Christopher Guest fave Jane Lynch, Daily Show dude Steve Carell, and capable funnyman Jeff Garlin all walk through the movie with something resembling grimaces, and are given no help by director Joe Nussbaum, whose short film George Lucas in Love was a charming, effervescent whiff of comedy and romance – two things for which he shows no talent here. It shouldn't be asked of someone so young as Vega to carry a movie, but she does manage to emerge relatively unscathed by the end, showing up everyone else in the film. While a star may not be born just yet, there are certainly promising twinklings of talent and charm in her future.