Review of Virtual Sexuality (1999) by Rebecca H — 07 Jul 2011

One of those refreshingly smart teen flicks, this film is all style and snappy dialogue, with a surprisingly honest ending for once.

The characters are a hoot too, with nerdy romantic hero and the girl who accidentally turns herself into her perfect man, with usual mix of the sexes humour. But the villains are ridiculous.

And the plot gets lost when it reintroduces the female hero. Justine turns herself into a man (Jake) due to a freak accident, fine. But when it turns out there is still a female Justine wandering around, oblivious to the existence of her alter ego, suddenly the film dips in intelligence and confuses who the film is supposed to focus on. Justine loses any personality she had and fancies Jake, Jake, despite being her, gets erections over women and is ultimately doomed to non-existence, which is lame and obvious. When Justine and Jake interact, it's all schmaltz. It's just another teen-wants-to-lose-virginity-for-sake-of-losing-virginity-can-they-stop-her-in-time plot which must have been done in every film that's featured a teenage girl, ever. And the villains are just so hackneyed, sheesh, what film did they wander in from?

Jake works as a lead, with nerdy Chas as support, and that film might have been worth watching, but this is the dull-Justine ride, another teen sex comedy, and it's not worth it. If only they'd stuck to the body swap idea, it could have been great. Well, for a teen flick, anyway.