Sydney White

STARRING: Amanda Bynes View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 9/21/2007 DATE SCREENED: 9/6/2007 The Verdict NOT GOOD - Wait for cable

Syndney White was filmed under the working title of “Sydney White and the Seven Dorks”. The basic idea was to do a modern retelling of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, set in college. “Snow White” becomes “Sydney White”, played by Amanda Bynes. The Seven Dwarfs are replaced by Seven college geeks, loosely based on the dwarf characters. I honestly don’t know how someone actually got the movie financed based on such a flimsy premise, but I walked into the theater hoping that maybe I would be surprised.

Sydney grew up with her father, working with him on various plumbing and construction projects. Her mother passed away when she was young. Sydney is the type of girl that knows how to play sports and use a hammer, more so than how to do hair and makeup. It’s time for Sydney to head off to college, and she plans to honor her mother by pledging the same sorority that her mom was a part of. On her way to the first pledge party, she immediately draws the ire of the sorority leader, Rachel Witchburn, by talking to her ex-boyfriend. But Sydney is a legacy, so she has to be allowed to pledge. It doesn’t take long for Sydney to realize that she does not fit in with this sorority, which is full of the stereotypical stuck-up blonde bitches. Rachel is jealous of Sydney’s growing friendship with her ex, so Sydney is publicly kicked out of the sorority. She ends up at a small broken down house on the end of the block, which houses the students who are so weird that they can not live with anyone else. They bond over Sydney’s comic book collection. The college is basically run by the fraternities and sororities, and Sydney is determined to put an end to it. She rallies her band of misfits and organizes a campaign to run for student body president against Rachel. Through this campaign, Sydney attempts to rally the entire school against the “evil” Greek system led by Rachel.

First I’ll get the positives out of the way. Amanda Bynes is adorable as Sydney White. She’s a joy to watch on screen and certainly has a bright future. But that’s where the positives end. The script she has to work with is garbage. Every other character is just a stereotype. The stereotypes of the geeks are slightly tweaked in order to match the dwarfs. One of them is sleepy all the time, another one sneezes all the time, another one is grumpy all the time, etc… But they are basically the same nerdy characters we’ve seen before. The actions of the sorority girls follow the same movie conventions we’ve seen countless times, most recently in the Bratz movie. The script is completely predictable, as it follows the same “revenge of the nerds” formula that has been around for over 20 years. If you’re the person who has been waiting for a re-telling of Snow White, then this is the move for you. If not, wait for it to come on cable just to watch Amanda Bynes. And only watch it as a last resort.