The Outcasts

Pretty good watch, would watch again, and can recommend.

This is really you're basic "coming of age", "high school clique war" movie. What makes it stand out is the cast. I just happen to recognize them from several different things, but they're clearly acting over their weight class in this movie.

Eden Sher ("The Middle") has the undaunted hyper-active peppy thing down to a science. It would be like watching happy puppy videos to just see her do her thing for hours on end.

Victoria Justice ("Victorious") has a big enough personality to match Eden's enthusiasm and enough control to make her character grow into it.

Ashley Rickards ("Awkward") oddly shows her talent by being a narrowly closeted character and the proverbial "straight man".

Peyton List ("Jessie / Bunk'd") has a subtle role, but I'm just happy to see her not playing an idiot.

Along with all the other supporting roles, the cast really knocks it out of the park with their delivery.

I would have liked it to be a little "more", the potential is there, I just don't know what could have made a high school story like this "great".

Solidly good watch though, if you're okay subjecting yourself to "high school drama", then you should enjoy this.

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.

Played this for my two nieces, ages 11 and 12, and they loved it. I could hear them laughing as I was cooking in the kitchen. I watched most of it from afar and it looked good.

My younger niece already asked to watch it again, so I figured I'd post this review for anyone else who might have girls in junior high. It seems perfect for them.

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 did find this movie a quite mediocre, cliché teen chick flick. There were so many flaws in this movie that it made the movie experience cringe worthy. The characters were some what relatable, but also poorly acted. Like you would have the most typical characters that you would find in any chick flick. Like the mean girls vs the socially awkward girls. It did become a bit of a bore since I have seen it all before. There wasn't really anything "great" about this movie. The concept and plot was quite interesting though it was poorly executed. I found also the narration throughout the movie were totally unnecessary. I felt really confused because we were looking into both of the two best friends lives, So it just felt useless having narration in the movie; It just felt tacky and rushed, just to give a bit more substance to the movie. There wasn't much intelligence to the movie. It was about geeks and freaks but it just felt so badly done, I just didn't like it at all. It is also just another knock off mean girls chick flick. Just watch mean girls.