The Outcasts

Mindy (Eden Sher) is aiming for MIT. Band geek Jodi (Victoria Justice) has been her best friend since 3rd grade. The two outsiders have been targets for Queen Bee Whitney (Claudia Lee). Mindy tries to make peace but Whitney humiliates Jodi. The girls set to overturn the high school power structure by uniting the disenfranchised.

The basic plot structure is well done and the young cast is solid. I really like Eden on her TV show. Many of the girls playing teens are in their 20s. This is not that different from other high school dramedies and should work well. Eden Sher is playing her wacky nerd character and Justice has good friend chemistry with her. Claudia Lee is a fine mean girl but this is no Mean Girls.

There are two main problems. First, the release seems to have run into some delays. I'm guessing that this was filmed around 2015 but the two years delay does mean that Victoria Justice is no longer the Nickelodeon It girl. She should be playing a college kid by now. It also leaves this movie out of time which is related to the second problem. The references in the movie are scattered all over the place. With the old computers and old early 2000s TV references, I wondered if the world is set at an earlier time. The modern cell phones and # place the movie in the present day. The competing time periods ultimately leave me unsatisfied. I want to like this movie for the young cast but the writing is not quite Tina Fey level. It has the potential but none of it is quite sharp enough.

In spite of its attempt to appeal to geeks by CONSTANTLY pandering with sci-fi references, this is ultimately a good example of what happens when a talented cast gets little to do. That's not to say there aren't funny moments. There are! (Especially from Eden Sher.) But the overall experience feels empty. It's yet another teen movie version of Animal Farm with very little imagination and not even a clear idea of how the "losers" take over the school. I had at least hoped for a fun, cathartic story about getting revenge on the "mean girls" but even that angle is subverted. The filmmakers force us to feel sorry for the people we'd rather love to hate and suck the fun out of it. Yet the "geek vs chic revolution" story continues, even after we're left with no side to root for. I get it… That was the point. Okay. But it was very unsatisfying. Again, it wasn't awful or un-watchable. Just… "eh."

I thought this movie was underrated. It was a super cute and enjoyable flick. Maybe not the makings of a classic, but still really fun.

A new knock off of Means Girls but on a larger scale. Nice time killer to have background noise when doing other things. Promotes underage drinking so its not a good movie for kids. The cast seem to be a bunch of has beens that were awesome entertaining little kids on the Disney channel but the world has sense moved on and left them with this. Not a movie I would ever recommend to anyone to watch.

This is a twist on the classic teenage agst, mean girls esque, teenage existential crisis film. But ultimately, what started out as a decent idea quickly ended up being just another film in a sea of other similar films. The important parts weren't well enough elaborated, and while the inside jokes to appeal to geeks were fun to watch. It doesn't justify all that was lacklustre in the film. Still, if a you're long for is a 'twist on the classic teenage agst, mean girls esque, teenage existential crisis film', without any expectations and all, it's still a fun watch.