Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions)
Despite its shortcomings, I will say this much in praise: this movie makes me want to read The Taming of the Shrew. Whether it would be as entertaining as 10 Things is uncertain, but knowing Shakespeare it probably has a little more pride and respect put into it. I don't want to assume that the many people who worked on this movie didn't care about it, but somebody along the way sacrificed the story for jokes. Now since it's a comedy, that's not such a bad thing, but really good comedies make the story work with the laughs rather than competing with them. There's definitely a story here, but I really wish it had explored the motif of societal expectations a little more deeply. People's expectations and ideas of what is normal are discussed a lot, but these discussions are used to fix plot holes instead of giving the story a unifying theme.The characters were okay, but pretty two-dimensional. The conversations between Kat and Patrick about how people perceive them were distractingly on-the-nose. I would have liked there to be a little more attention given to Bianca and Cameron because I think they both had internal problems that weren't really treated like problems. Bianca is really superficial and unconsciously uppity, and Cameron is blinded by Bianca's physical aura, but neither of them ever suffer for their faults. The minor characters are mostly there for laughs, and they deliver by and large. Going back through the dialogue, I'm realizing how many witty lines there are throughout. The issue with that is they don't serve a whole lot of purpose and don't feel that realistic. Still, the actors own their lines for the most part, although Julia Stiles masks her inability to act behind a decent stage presence. There are a couple of plot holes, the most obvious of which is Joey's system for paying Patrick to date Kat. If Patrick really wanted to, he could have just prolonged the process to get more money out of Joey, but this possibility was ignored. This is good if your looking for a decent comedy, though it's not John Hughes. I kind of felt like it wanted to be a dramady, but the people in charge decided to make it more of a comedy in order to make it more marketable. I don't know how well it does justice to the play it is based off of, but I doubt many people will be offended by the mutilation of a play they were forced to Sparknote (is that a verb?) in high school. So, it could be kind of a fun way to spend 90 minutes with some friends, but it's no great work of cinema. Overall rating: 6.7/10.
