Zapped

I did not know why there was so much hate on this film. I never give any preference to those criticisms. Instead, I always prefer taking chances and that's how I saw this film. I was not expecting much. Like usual any Disney films, I thought it would be fun, but my prediction went totally wrong. I am really sorry to join those criticisers, but this film is the worst I have seen in many years. Seeing the bad films are part of my watch, but I never expected this low. The last time I rated this low probably half a decade ago.

There's nothing much different in the story comparing with other Disney films such as the recent 'Adventures in Babysitting' and 'The Swap'. But those films fared decently, while this one was utterly crap. Firstly, the cast was unbelievable. It was totally a disaster, including the lead, Zendaya. The only bright spot was the Chanelle Peloso.Especially the mean girl was very annoying. Not as a character, but as an actor with her character execution.

The film was based on the book called 'Boys are Dogs'. But the narration was very slow in the film, it took forever between each scene. Only by dragging the film got past the 90 minutes, otherwise it is an hour long film. Only her fans might enjoy it. Not even the little kids or the grown-ups would do that, so I totally recommend to stay away from it. I never used such words that I wrote here for my reviews. I regret for that, but the fact remains that the film is not good, not even average, only very bad.

2/10

This was one of the worst Disney channel original movies I have ever seen! I seriously need someone to tell me why they keep making these horrible original movies, even the old ones used to be better than these and they didn't have the graphics or anything 10 years ago. If you want a tip then don't watch it, every original movie Disney channel has produced in the last few years have basically been the same thing. The acting in this film is also a let down, I'm not saying it's absolutely terrible (I mean Zendaya was quite good) but something needs to be done about who the casting director is if that's all they can come up with. I mean come on it's Disney.

YOUR LETTING Disney DOWN!

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..

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.

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.