The Outcasts

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.

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.

If you add a bit of jeekiness and weirdness, take away a little bit of Hollywood polish and sophistication, and possibly stir in a pinch of satire on the Mean Girls & The Clique, then you'll have this movie. It's not an award winning movie, but if you take it as fun, you'll be fine with it.

The Outcasts? The Outskirts? Mean Girls 3,however yeah say it is now the new enough teen movie starring Peyton List and Eden Sher,from one of my favorite shows The Middle. To be honest,the only reason I watched this was because I was strolling on Netflix and when I heard,talented actress Eden Sher was in it like a few years back so now,I finally got to see it. The Out____ is nothing we obviously have not seen before,its basically just the reboot of Mean Girls. I'm not going to say that The Out____ is a horrible copy of Mean Girls,I was just disappointed with what I saw due to me having waiting years to see it with absolutely no release date what so ever other than '2015,2016,2012,2013' and then just '????'. Eden Sher was very good in the film but I thought played the exact same character from The Middle except not as nice and fragile,Mindy,the character she played,was though a bit more tuff to be honest. The Out(whatever!) though is OK,nothing I'd really see again

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.