10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Hate About You is a teen movie from the 90s loosely based on William Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." It stars Heath Ledger before he was dead, Joseph Gordon Levitts before he was famous, and Juilia Stiles before she was suddenly transformed into a flesh eating alien! Okay, that last part might not be true.

10 Things I Hate About You is a movie like no other. Oh wait, actually it's a movie that's like a lot of movies made at this time. For example, every single teen movie ever made. I mean it, it has all the same tropes or whatever you want to call them, that make teen movies what they are. Yup, despite being based on one of the Bard's plays it really doesn't do a single thing original or unique to the genre.

This movie is about Heath Ledger's character, Patrick, who is hired by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Cameron James (funniest name in the movie), to seduce Julia Stiles' character, Kat. The reason for this is because Cameron wants to date Kat's younger sister whose overbearing father told them that she couldn't date unless Kat did. That part I kinda liked, based on The Bard's play and a clever twist on the same old shit. However, everything else after that kinda just makes me want to break stuff!

The reason for my urge to smash is that everything about this movie is completely cliche. It doesn't try to do even one thing original. True, it is pretty funny, at least it has its moments, but that doesn't make up for how little this movie does anything even remotely original. Heath is a bad boy, Julia is a prudish girl, they meet, they hate each other, then they love each other. Heath isn't as bad as he was anymore. Julia isn't as much of a prude. They're in love and that's all that matters right?

Oh yeah, and Joseph gets his girl too... SPOILER!

OVERALL: D+. I'm only giving it the plus because it was pretty funny. It was lacking in just about every other regards though. There wasn't anything in this movie that you couldn't get from, say, watching "Another Teen Movie," and that's the god damned parody for Christ's sake.