10 Things I Hate About You

Unlike recent adolescent bastardizations of great originals, like Cruel Intentions (the Dangerous Liaisons story) and She's All That (the Cinderella story), this "Taming of the Shrew, but with teenagers" actually makes its material feel a bit fresh. A major reason is Julia Stiles, a smart, lively presence, who takes on the role of "shrew" Kat and makes it warmly appealing. Her castmates are solid as well, including adult actors who uncharacteristically have a bit more to do than sit around and look stupid. The script, meanwhile, gives the dialogue a bite that goes beyond insult humor and high school patois, and while the teen-film situations are pretty predictable, the approach to those scenes is a sharp step up from the run-of-the-mill banal. Unfortunately, veteran sit-com director Gil Junger covers everything with a heavy coating of warm-n-fuzzy gloss and then crams every one of Shakespeare's sub-plots into 94 minutes, short-changing all of them. Still, it's enough of a surprise to find a teen film that doesn't overstay its welcome instantly, providing the faint hope that there are still good movies to be made"...but with teenagers." Strong optional. (S. Renshaw)[DVD Review—Jan. 19, 2010—Touchstone, 97 min., PG-13, $19.98—Making its latest appearance on DVD, 1999's 10 Things I Hate About You features a nice transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. DVD extras include audio commentary (by co-writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and costars Andrew Keegan, David Krumholtz, Larisa Oleynik, and Susan May Pratt), a “10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You” retrospective featurette (35 min.), a bonus digital copy of the film, and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for this mostly winning Shakespeare update.]