He's All That: Cute, But Underdeveloped

The gender-bent He's All That is added onto the long list of reboots that didn't need to leave the conference room.

The film follows Padgett Sawyer (Addison Rae) a shrugging social media influencer who loses her followers for being authentic and is now on the hunt to win them back. To win back her popularity she makes a bet to turn loser Cameron (Tanner Buchannan) into prom king.


The plot doesn't stray outside of the typical teen rom-com storylines that have been done millions of times in every iteration you can think of. It sticks to the enemies to lovers trope and who knew that singing Teenage Dream could make any guy instantly fall in love with you. As well as using everyone's favorite trope of keeping being poor or working a secret because that is the worst thing you could be. It felt cluttered but at the same time, it didn't give audiences much.


For her first acting role, Addison relies on shrugs and singing her lines to tap into that internet personality all of her under 12 fans have come to love. Tanner Buchannan a more seasoned actor gives a pretty performance with the little material he has to work with. Addison has the support of actors around her who know what they are doing to make up for her beginner approach. No one watching this was expecting Oscar-winning performances so there isn't a high bar set.


The movie is flooded with product placements and references in hopes to attract Gen Z. There have never been clearer shots of products than there are in this movie. It ruins any chances of this being a timeless movie like the original.


The expectations for He's All That was of your typical Netflix teen comedy and if it was set there then it wasn't that bad of a watch and at times cute. The bad writing and directing aren't the fault of the cast which is surprising because it is written by the writer of original and directed by the Mean Girls director and on paper that seems like the perfect combination. it is obvious this reboot needed more time in the idea phase before it was executed and could have waited for the pandemic to pass to start shooting.