How Do You Spell "Stress?" P-R-O-M: "Prom" Movie Review

Who's in it: Aimee Teegarden, Thomas McDonnell, DeVaughn Nixon, Danielle Cambell, Yin Chang, Jared Kusnitz, Nolan Sotillo

MPAA Rating: PG for mild language and a brief fight

What it's about: In a world where money is apparently a non-issue when it comes to elaborate, creative, and over-the-top ways of asking a girl to dance, lives a senior class of rated-PG teenagers who we see in the weeks leading up to the fateful event the world calls "Prom."

Leading young lady Nova Prescott (the bland Aimee Teegarden, who was the first kill in this year's Scre4m) is the perfect student who has her whole future set in stone - except she can't exactly get a prom date.

As the head of every club you could think of, including Prom Committee, she's working hard to make "the one night where we can all just come together" as special as possible, but after an accidental conflagration, she is forced to start from scratch on all of the decorations with only two stressful weeks left.

Enter long-haired, on-the-poorer-end-of-the-social-food-chain Jesse Richter (classic bad boy name,) who rides motorcycles and despises the idea of prom. His punishment for being a bad boy is having to help Nova make the decorations every day after school.

But the two are polar opposites, how will they ever get along? You'd have to be a child between the ages of 6 and 13 to not see how this one will end.

What I think about it: The assumed demographic this movie should target is teenagers anxiously waiting for their prom night, right? Well, yes, that's who you'd think it should be for.

But with a PG rating and a painfully predictable plot, I would say you'd have to be a tween or younger to not see how this one will end, and have a great time not doing that.

It's just that this movie seems to give all of the characters a happy ending, even the bad guy that didn't deserve one was all smiles in the end.

It gives the audience a false sense of prom-night perfection, which is great for the little kids who have years before they need to worry there careless minds with that nonsense. But for everyone else, it either makes you think, "Man, there is no way my prom will be that awesome" or "Man, my prom sucked," depending on your age.

What the movie does is lie to everyone. But maybe its good that they lied to the little kids, because -- lets face it world -- the era of face-to-face dancing is long gone.

Best Part: As much as I hate to say it, the inevitable cute ending was my favorite part.

I'll admit, I'm kind of a sucker for movies where a guy does something extremely cute for a girl. It gives me ideas for the future and shows me that those kind of things actually work, even though its just a movie.

It also gets me mad because moments like that make all the rest of us guys look bad for not doing that mushy stuff that girls love. It's not fair that she put him in the perfect position to do something cute, that doesn't just happen in real life! Ahh, you'll know what I mean if you see it, Guy.

But Those Aren't The Only Two Characters: There are about 600 other teens in the movie with their own little problems, some of which can actually be related to by teens of today.

One guy, nervous Lloyd, desperate to get a date, asks any and every girl in increasingly creative ways, only to fail and fail. One couple have been dating since the seventh grade, but the girl doesn't have the guts to tell her boyfriend she got accepted to the college of her dreams, the college he will not be attending next year. That kind of stuff.

It's an attempt to grab a hold of the teenagers watching the movie and keep their attention. But it doesn't quite work

What Does Quite Work: The mature-for-a-Disney-movie subject matter. Jesse's seemingly rebellious nature and class-cutting tendencies can be explained by his family's unfortunate money situation, a secret he keeps in for most of the movie.

Even better, there's the scandal of senior jock cheating on his longtime girlfriend with a promiscuous sophomore. Just to spice things up. That is the kind of stuff we high-schoolers like to see.

Keep In Mind: I'm writing all of this with my senior prom looming a short distance away....FRIDAY!

Final Word: Could've been worse, could've been better.  Take your kids to see it, become the awesome parent.

Overall Grade: C+