Okay, in my past few reviews, I have hit upon two of my frequently recurring themes that I’ve noticed in movies. Now, we have a movie that has combined them, into an appealing, but sometimes clunky, vision. The movie is Never Been Kissed, which is appealing, original in spots, entertaining mostly due to Drew Barrymore, but a tad boring, and disjointed at times.

First off, the good point. I still have a soft place in my heart for movies that delve into the 80s; it's culture, music, ideals, fashion, etc. Usually, any movie with this theme will score points, and this movie does. It effectively recaptures what it was like growing up in the era of leg warmers, parachute pants, Reagan, and Soft Cell.

My downside is related to that however. It deals with the nearly complete lack of originality. I have seen most of the aspects of this movie, done better, in other places. If you see this movie, see how many of these you can pick out, here are the movies that I saw shamelessly stolen from. Just One Of The Guys, Hiding Out, Can't Buy Me Love, Carrie, and any number of the "nerd trying to fit in" or "fish out of water" storylines that have been beaten into lifeless submission by the lemming-like storywriters in Hollywood.

I have to admit though; this movie did have some appeal to it. The majority of revolved around the effective, dual performance, of Drew Barrymore. Barrymore's character is shown, in flashbacks, to have been a nerd growing up, trying to survive, and actually succeeding, upon graduation, to move onward and upward in her life. Her youthful looks land her a job as an undercover reporter at a high school. Is that plausible, yeah I guess, seems like I've heard of it happening before, but some of the scenes of transition and acceptance, seem a bit clunky. Anyhow, she sees this, as a second chance to make her high school memories better. What she doesn't count on, is becoming attracted to one of the instructors (name), and befriending a science geek (wonderfully emotional, yet downkey performance from Leelee Sobieski, who is probably the cutest nerd I've ever seen honestly). Now I dont know about anyone else, but the whole storyline of a teacher, being attracted to a high school student, bothered me a tad. Call me prudish or unrealistic if you must, but I wasn't buying it. Also the storyline with David Arquette is underused at times, and a bit too over the top at others. More under usage occurs in the limited screen time of the only reason to watch SAturday Night Live these days (since Norm is gone on to that atrocious TV show), Molly Shannon, as Barrymore's oversexed co-worker. Her character was entertaining to watch, and brought some true humor when on screen. The flashback sequences were a nice touch, but when the camera was not focused on Barrymore's coping, or her friendship with Sobieski, and Arquette, it suffered badly.