Never Been Kissed

Josie Gellar (Drew Barrymore) is a Chicago Sun Times copy editor. She's a stiff perfectionist, and not aggressive enough to be a reporter. That is until the owner arbitrarily assigns Josie as an undercover high school student. Only she was a loser nerd in her high school years, and she returns as a loser nerd in her new undercover work. With the help of her younger drop-out brother Rob Geller (David Arquette), she gets a makeover and infiltrates the popular group.

She is scary nerdy and humiliating. It's really not funny unless we are supposed to laugh at her. Luckily for the movie, Drew Barrymore is impossibly lovable. She makes us love her no matter what, and makes this sad pathetic character somewhat watchable.

I thought my one-line summary was going to be 'this was a very bad idea', a line spoken by Drew Barrymore's character. At that point in the movie, there were no likeable characters to speak of, except maybe Drew's brother. But Drew's character grew on me. And her brother played a bigger role in the movie's second half. Overall, things started getting better as time went on. And the best acting performance, to me, was that of the actress playing a nerdy kid who became Drew's friend. I was pleasantly surprised to find the name Leelee Sobieski in the credits. She has impressed me before, without my knowing who she was, and she did it again. By the end of the movie, I was feeling pretty good. It didn't have to be quite so dirty, though.

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, because the previews made it look hysterical. I was surprised that this is one of the first movies that I have ever seen that doesn't give away the ENTIRE plot in the trailer.

I was glad that I got to see the movie, but I came away feeling that the movie was really inconsistent. It is not up to the standards of some of the other teenage-girl angst flicks (She's all That and 10 things I hate about you come to mind). The heroines in those movies could wipe the floor with any of the characters in Never Been Kissed.

Never Been Kissed is not a perfect movie, but I wasn't expecting that. The story is predictable yet simple and the ending is hokey, but I still liked the film. Why did I? Firstly, Drew Barrymore. There may be people who don't like her, I do and I have since seeing her in Ever After(and that was a wonderful film). Here she does what she does best, which is cute and funny romance, the result is that we are treated to a fun and captivating performance. Secondly, David Arquette is a lot of fun as Barrymore's slightly odd older brother, and I also enjoyed Leelee Sobieski's minor turn here. Michael Vartan is charming in his own way as well. The script does have its humorous moments, the film does have a nice feel-good element to it, the direction is fine and the soundtrack is nice. Overall, an enjoyable movie, not a masterpiece, but just a nice bit of fluff. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It was charming, funny, and, at times painful. I, however think it was painful to watch because I had such a hard time at high school, and I could relate to this movie.

It reminded me of "Mean Girls" a lot, although this had a softer edge to it.

It was a bit predictable, but, sometimes a good, sweet, romance with a happy ending is what you want in a movie.

The acting was good, and the story was believable-if a bit far-fetched.

The sound track was awesome!