Zapped

I have always liked Disney movies primarily because I can watch them with my kids without worry of them hearing or seeing something I would prefer they didn't, until I saw Zapped. Even my kids made comments about how it was "about controlling boys" and was "kind of insulting to boys". Those we're they're words, not mine. The movie is about a girl who downloads an app to her phone. The app is for training "dogs". The app turns out to have magical powers. The magical powers are that it allows the owner to control boys (implied dogs) with verbal commands. Anything the owner says into the phone, boys have to do. It's a dog training app, that controls boys. Does anyone see the (probably unintentional, but still there) unspoken message there? But that isn't all. Boys are presented as immature, "untrained", disgusting, farting, and ridiculous fools. And that is before the controlling app is even introduced. It was one of those movies that I kept growing more uncomfortable with the more it went on. I kept thinking, "OK, the whole demeaning-to-boys thing will end soon and it will get better". But it never did. If the gender of the characters were reversed in this movie and it portrayed girls like this, it never would have been released. Remember, the target audience of this movie is kids. What message is this movie relaying to kids? To boys, it says, "You should be embarrassed of yourself". Disappointing.

Wow. Really, Disney channel had to do this? When I saw the commercial for zapped i was pretty excited to see the movie, full of dancing and girls ruling the school ;). But that's the opposite of zapped. Summary--- Zoey's mom is marrying a man who was three sons and a huge dog and poor zoey is stuck in the middle. But when she finally moves in, the boys are nasty and drive Zoey crazy. Once she gets to school, she gets up close with the annoying, immature farting boys (Cliché ALERT) Then, she meets a nerd,of course..(Cliché ALERT) who helps her avoid the boys. She accidentally ends up in the wrong place and the teacher asks the cute guy to helps her find the class. Oy Vey. Then, it's heard from the lead popular girl that thats her ex- boyfriend. Must I go on?

This movie.

Not only is it incredibly sexist and degrading toward men, but I think the worst part of all is the Jackson character. He's a cardboard-cut-out pretentious beanie-wearing hipster white boy who constantly talks about how "everyone is always on their phone" and "phones are bad" and, my personal favorite, "I don't even own a phone." In fact, I don't want to call him the worst part of the movie, if anything, he's the best part, because it's just so laughable. Especially the part where he's reading To Kill A Mockingbird in the park and acting like he's so knowledgeable and poetic for even reading such a book.

Don't watch this movie. Unless you want to laugh at it.

Ill-conceived and poorly executed Disney movie, probably the worst since "Princess Protection Program". The tone is "I Love Lucy" slapstick, arguably dumbed-down several notches even from that.

Zendaya is not a dramatic actor (actress), nor are most of the cast members. She does a good comic monologue at the start of the movie and then the wheels fall off. She would make an excellent news commentator, game show host, or comedy club performer, but her dramatic acting is borderline embarrassing. Oh for the days of Kay Panabaker or Amanda Bynes, who could have brought something (audience identification or actual comedy - respectively) to this role.

The strength of the production is Emilia McCarthy, who shows an unexpected range in the role of bad girl queen bee, nicely overplayed. It's extremely unusual to find a young actor with this much versatility. Like Juno Temple, McCarthy could believably play anything from an extreme airhead to an over-the-top queen bee like this one. And her physical appearance is the sort than adapts to sell a variety of personality types.

Although McCarthy helps attract boy viewers (who otherwise would despise this thing), she is the kiss of death for the rest of the cast because her scenes with them expose the staggering talent disparity for all to see.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child..

Don't look at the 6.0 ranking this movie gets in IMDb. Just because a hundred of fans scored a 10 for this one, doesn't make it a good movie. After leaving Shake it Up, I thought that Zendaya would give a really good turn to her career, especially after watching her getting' silver in DWTS. Unfortunately, making this absurd collection of shots that some people calls movie was a terrible decision. "Zapped" has some ingredients that only the very bad comedies have: nasty and filthy boys, fart jokes, overacted queen bee, and I stop counting. I don't know what Zendaya was thinking, but maybe she was kinda cheated before signing the contract. She is talented, she's got everything, she's young and not desperate at all to make things like this. It was enough with three years of Shake it Up. I hope I'll never watch Zendaya in a Disney production for TV. Never again.