The Hot Chick (2002)

Well, isn't this just ducky -- under the guise of an unassuming frat-boy shitcom, Rob Schneider and Co. have fashioned a big fat valentine to the polymorpheousness of human sexuality. Seriously, there's some weird shit going on here. In its use of gender-identity satire and sexual malleability, it almost feels like a good-natured cousin to the scathing Terror Firmer. It's also actually pretty funny, too. I'm all for Rob Schneider's hapless-shlub persona. Here, he's at his most goofily unhinged and seems to be making several jokes work by force of will. He's also been blessed for the first time with an able supporting cast (Lord knows The Animal would have been better minus Colleen Haskell); Anna Faris, in particular, is developing into the kind of comedic actress that Jennifer Coolidge wishes she was, with an extraordinarily expressive face and a willingness to go along with most anything. (I still remember her all-out attempts to make the Charlie's Angels parody in Scary Movie 2 work, which is the closest that film got to amusing.) It's lowbrow comedy at heart, but the subtext cannot be denied. And as it stands, this is the only crowd-pleasing Hollywood comedy in existence that has a scene with overtones of lesbian incest. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Grade: B-