He’s All That
He’s All That is Netflix’s latest release catered at a teenage girl audience, falling somewhere between The Kissing Booth and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. It’s not necessarily a good film, however, it is definitely one of Netflix’s better offerings in the teen rom-com genre. It’s fine. It also happens to be a gender-swapped reboot of the 1999 classic starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook, She’s All That – which also happens to be an adaption of the play Pygmalion.
He’s All That follows Padgett Sawyer, played by the reigning queen of TikTok Addison Rae, who like her actor is a social media darling with a highly successful platform where she’s known for giving people makeovers. As is to be expected, Padgett is dating another successful social media personality, Jordan Van Draanen (Peyton Meyer), whom she brings gluten-free croquembouche to on the set of his new music video only to receive the rude awakening that she’s being cheated on with a backup dancer. Oh, and of course this is all being live-streamed to thousands of people. Padgett becomes a meme and, in turn, loses a brand sponsorship that was meant to pay her college tuition. In order to turn her brand back around her friend, Alden (Madison Pettis), bets Padgett that she won’t be able to makeover the unpopular and rebellious, Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan), and turn him into the Prom King.
He’s All That does take a lot from the original film but adapts it for a modern audience and setting. Most of the things that work well in He’s All That are elements taken straight from She’s All That. Key plot points from the original film are present: the embarrassing public breakup, giving the school loser a makeover and turning them popular, as well as the purpose of all this being a bet. Actors from the original film also return as new characters, with Rachael Leigh Cook playing Padgett’s overworked nurse of a mother, while Matthew Lillard also makes an appearance as Cali High School’s principal. It even references She’s All That parody Not Another Teen Movie. It is disappointing that there’s no “nerd takes off glasses and is suddenly hot” trope that was pioneered by the original film.
Addison Rae, who plays He’s All That’s main character Padgett, is famous for dancing on TikTok but has since been quietly infiltrating mainstream Hollywood; it’s about time that she would break into film. Since Rae’s character is playing a social media starlet, she does excel in the scenes where Padgett has the influencer charm turned on. Rae struggles in the scenes that require deeper emotion, though, often being so flat that the camera pulls away for a wider angle rather than expected close-ups on her facial expressions. There are some other rough scenes, but this happens to a lot of the cast, and can be more attributed to a poor script. As a whole, Addison Rae does all right for not being a trained actor; it could be interesting to see whether she will continue going for film roles and hopefully develop her acting chops. Tanner Buchanan who plays Cameron does a particularly good job in his role, with many of his mannerisms taken straight from classic romantic comedies. Buchanan and Rae also have good chemistry which makes the love story between Cameron and Padgett feel a little more realistic.
It’s mainly the things that are changed and added to He’s All That that prevent it from being a good film. Kourtney Kardashian, who is likely only in the film because of a peculiar real-life friendship with Addison Rae, plays a business owner who sponsors Padgett in a performance so bad that the kindest way to describe it would be camp. A lot of other cringe moments stem from how centred the film is on social media. There are also a lot of subplots that never go anywhere. Quite a few side characters do seem interesting on the surface, but the film never takes the time to explore them and seems to only have them present in the script to check off a diversity quota. He’s All That does try to include a critique of social media addiction, but this never fully comes through because of how reliant the script is on social media to push the plot forward. The film is also rampant with generic statements on social media usage such as “You can’t just enjoy this without sharing it with 500 strangers?” and isn’t even that realistic when it comes to social media in general. Though it is difficult to critique social media when the film’s star happens to be one of the most followed creators on TikTok.
With director Mark Waters being behind such classics like Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, and the original writer behind She’s All That, R, Lee Fleming Jr. it is disappointing how flat He’s All That feels. It’s definitely, at the very least, a watchable thing, but He’s All That is nothing compared to the classics that have come before it. Just rewatch the original.