At one point during "Sydney White," a background player shakes his head in disbelief after witnessing his fellow classmates humiliate themselves in an overly "wacky" scene. In a single head motion, this character sums up the audience's reaction to watching a handful of actors humiliate themselves in a sloppily produced, clichéd movie.
In director Joe Nussbaum's broad retelling of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Amanda Bynes ("Hairspray") plays the titular role of Sydney White, except really she's just typecast as the "secretly beautiful tomboy" again. Thanks in part to being raised only by her clichéd, wisdom-spouting father, played by semi-famous acting veteran John Schneider, Sydney is more into comic books and football than make-up and clothes. During her freshman year in college, Sydney rushes her late mother's sorority, in which she finds herself the outcast. She quickly becomes the target of sorority sister Rachel Witchford (Sara Paxton, "Summerland"), the campus' resident evil queen.
After being publicly humiliated by Witchford, Sydney finds a home with seven dorky outcasts. Tired of the social hierarchy in place at their school, Sydney and her fellow dorks vow to take the school back for the minorities and misfits — and you can probably guess where it goes from there. Even for a story based on a well-known fable, "Sydney White" is basically a write-by-numbers script: Pit a pretty but awkward girl against the shallow, mean girl, throw in a love interest, and you've got a feature film by first-time writer Chad Creasey.
On top of the uninspired plot, Creasey piles on the clichés. College life and the Greek system are ripe for satire, but Creasey derives the laughs from stale and untrue observations. In his world, all sorority girls are narcissists, sluts or borderline alcoholics. He would also have you believe that a student would destroy another's academic career for a case of Hot Pockets — because, of course, all college students are utterly desperate for this delectable cuisine. The film portrays college as a shallow period of life, filled with stereotyped high-school cliques and peer pressure.
There are, though, a few bright spots in the humdrum script, mostly involving the band of geeks. While most films of the same quality would portray nerds as having the same clichéd interests as every other geek in film history — "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" — "Sydney White" makes her "dwarves" truly modern. Their dialogue plays out like fanboys bickering over an Internet forum and vigorously discussing the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" and "Doctor Who." The actors portraying these geeks seem like they are having a good time during these scenes, making for some of the only chuckles and authentic parts of this forced film. It's safe to say that the actors playing the horde of misfits are the ones who steal the movie, particularly Samm Levine, as wannabe ladies man Spanky, and Danny Strong, as the angry Internet blogger Gurkin. Perhaps years of playing nerds on "Freaks and Geek" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have overqualified them for the film. Both of the actors' comedic timing is leagues above that of Bynes.
Still, Bynes is serviceable in the film. The former Nickelodeon star does what she can with the half-hearted jokes, but she lacks the ability to create pure comedic gold. Until Bynes finds the right vehicle that shows off her comedy skills, it's clear she is best suited for secondary characters à la "Hairspray." The one thing Bynes manages to effectively do, though, is keep the audiences' attention on her rather than on her co-star Sara Paxton, whose Disney Channel-caliber acting produces some dreadfully awful scenes.
Going into "Sydney White" one does not expect a cinematic masterpiece, but even as a simple diversion for the afternoon, "White" fails to meet expectations. Bynes and her fellow misfit actors do what they can to raise the bar for this film, creating for a few laughs, but nevertheless, none of them really have the ability to carry a movie. Plagued with an insipid script and bottom-barrel production values, "Sydney White" almost makes the audience want to chomp on their own poison apple.
2 stars out of 5
