J Besser
Maybe I'm a little too hard on teen movies. After watching most of the '80s teen flicks maybe I think I've seen it all. Forgive me. Even though "Can't Hardly Wait" is uneven at times, it's a satisfying watch. It has laugh-out-loud moments and pulls the heart strings at the same time. Well done. If I was twenty five years younger it would be great.
preppy-3
This mostly takes place at a huge party thrown for a bunch of kids after they graduate from high school. The movie focuses on a few of them. Amanda (Jennifer Love-Hewitt) and Mike (Peter Facinelli) have been together since 9th grade but break up just before graduation. This gives nice guy Preston (Ethan Embry) a shot at her--but he's going away the next day. He also has a perpetually depressed friend Denise (Lauren Ambrose). Then there's William (Charlie Korsmo) a super nerd who has always been tormented by Mike--and plans to take his revenge at the party. Then there's Ken (Seth Green) a white boy who likes to pretend he's black.This got good reviews when it came out and it's easy to see why. It's a surprisingly fun teen movie. It's colorful, has a great soundtrack and a very fun and witty script. There's also good acting by the entire cast and it's fun to see what some of these people went on to do. Love-Hewitt, Facinelli and Embry are still going strong. Also there's an uncredited appearance by Jenna Elfman. A fun, enjoyable teen movie.
VanPyree
Just like all the others, this is a high-school movie about one last party of sorts before college. A few clichéd characters, some pre-frat-boys doing what frat boys do, geeks geeking around, some school-spirit girl trying to get folks to sign her yearbook, outsiders doing their own thing and it's mostly love stories.This was a pretty common genre back in the day and it was near peak saturation. I rewatched this film with a clean palette, but it's just not that good. It's not that bad either, but there are very few redeeming qualities about it, other than perhaps a "before they were famous" look-back through this yearbook of a movie. You also get to see peak Jennifer Love Hewitt at the peak of her fame.There's nothing interesting about the story that hasn't been said and done before. There's no deeper meaning to the film, no subtleties, no mysteries, no reason to see it twice, maybe not even worth watching once or paying attention while watching. There's no interesting story-telling technique, no camera tricks or cinematography. The music is just a playlist of whatever was popular back then, Third Eye Blind, White Zombie, Creed among others. It's only interesting as a snapshot of the late 90's. It captured the spirit of the 90's, the youth culture, the movie culture, the fashion and the language. Other than that, this is a 6/10 film at best.
ryan mcdaniel
I liked this movie a lot. It had all the elements of a great teen movie without the whinny, class warfare of the 80s teen flicks. Seth Green was excellent in his role and has a lot of one liners that we still use around our house today. Its hard to really critique this movie on a normal basis because it lacks real depth. But if you want to laugh a lot and have a good time with friends, this is the movie to break out of the DVD collection. Like I said before, this is truly the last great teen movie to come out of Hollywood. I've heard that the directors cut is better but the original has enough laughs to make it watchable. Watch it....and watch it again!
AD
