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Curse the makers of 'Can't Hardly Wait' and 'American Pie' for making the movies so successful. Like 'Scream' a few years ago, these movies' and their popularity have spawned a new generation of wannabe rip-offs that put audiences to sleep and give teenagers a bad name. Case in point: 'Whatever it Takes'- a tasteless, predictable, worthless movie about teens eager to do the nasty come prom night. Rhetorical question of the day: "Does the world really need another one of these?" To be fair, this movie has its moments, but none is strong enough to sustain a stinker of this magnitude. It is ironic that the theme to this movie's prom is "Titanic Dreams" because that's about how fast this movie sinks. The movie is about an average high schooler with a heart of gold, Ryan (Shane West), who lusts after the school's gorgeous but shallow queen of popularity (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) Ashley Grant. Unable to attain this dream girl, he strikes a deal with her sleazy cousin (James Franco), who is infatuated with Ryan's gorgeous but unnoticed best friend (Marla Solokoff). Pulling a page out of 'Cyrano', the two instruct each other on how to talk and act in order to get to the hearts of their respective females. One word: Gag. The main problem with the movie is that it does not know how to deliver what it wants to. None of the actors in the movie seem to know what they want to accomplish, except for Franco, who seems hell bent on doing his worst impersonations of Fonzie and Joey from 'Friends'. All of the characters are template and manufactured, clones of all teen movies that came before this.As a drama, the story tries to take on some flakes of originality, but the screenwriters seem too scared to break out on their own, assuming that teens only like being served the same hash and re-hash every time we go to the theater. And if you can't guess what happens by the end of the movie within the first five minutes, then by all means shell out the cash for the ticket. As a comedy, this movie is seemingly devoid of humor, save a few jokes about farting and vomiting here and there. But for almost two hours, this movie toggles between lunacy and idiocy, leaving the audience willing to do whatever it takes to get their money back.
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