Hoffnungslos verliebt

Ryan Woodman (Shane West) and Maggie Carter (Marla Sokoloff) are neighbors and best friends. Ryan is a very sensible guy, his nerd friends are very weird and has a crush in Ashley Grant (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe). Ashley is a shallow but popular, beautiful and sexy girl in their high school. Her cousin Chris Campbell (James Franco) is a brainless and dumb American football player, who wants to have a date with Maggie. Ryan and Chris make a deal: each one of them will introduce and help the other to be with the girl of their dreams. This movie is so predictable that around six minutes of story I could foresee the end. The story is full of clichés, but there are some funny (but also expected) situations. The teen cast is not bad and in the end it becomes a reasonable and forgettable entertaining. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): `Correndo Atrás' (`Running After')

A nerdy teen, Ryan Woodman (Shane West) is smitten with the popular and gorgeous Ashley Grant (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), who apparently has no interest in him. Meanwhile, dim star athlete Chris Campbell (James Franco) has his eye on Ryan's brainy and beautiful friend, Maggie Carter (Marla Sokoloff). The two agree to help each other in their romantic quests, but, as they come closer to their goals, both Ryan and Chris suspect that they might be pursuing the wrong girls.

As you can tell, "Whatever It Takes" is certainly nothing new or ground-breaking, but for what it is, it's entertaining and slightly above-average. James Franco is the best thing about this movie, although his character and their motive is very questionable. He's what kept me sticking around until the credits roll. The film has every teen cliché in the book, geeky sidekicks in Whatever It Takes are no better or worse than those in a dozen other teen movies of recent vintage, but they get the job done. Despite its flaws there's something sweet and delightfully anarchic about it, it's light, fluffy, fast-paced, and through the use of overdone ideas are a couple original moments. So despite its formulaic plot and all-too-tired themes, this John Hughes-movie wannabe has just enough quirky charm to compensate for its generic story.

The only part of WIT it takes I liked was the set, Maggie and Ryan's balconies. That was cool, plus it had the opportunity to say the one funny part of the film was when Ryan jumps onto her porch and Maggie says the line [not gonna say it if people are reading this who haven't seen the movie]. Much better versions of this storyline were "Never Been Kissed", "She's All That" and the aforementioned "10 Things". I must admit, I was a little confused why they put great actors like Kip Pardue and Christine Lakin in bit parts while Jodi Lyn O'keefe and James Franco were starring.

Lacks the heart of the other more well known 90s/2000s teen movies. It just feels like there's no substance and it's really hard to root for anyone because you never really get to know anyone.

Ryan Woodman (Shane West) and Maggie Carter (Marla Sokoloff) are best friends and neighbors. Floyd (Aaron Paul) is their slacker friend. Ryan is obsessed with high school goddess Ashley Grant (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe). Big man on campus Chris Campbell (James Franco) wants to get the one he can't get, the virginal enigmatic Maggie. So he needs Ryan to Cyrano DeBergerac for him. In return he proposes to do the same for Ryan with his cousin Ashley.

The biggest problem is that Shane West is way too good looking for the loser role. They need somebody much more geeky, and a bad haircut really doesn't make it. It's nothing offensive, but it just can't rise above the clichés. It's obvious where this is going, and it has an uncomfortable time getting there.