Addison Rae Entertains No One in He’s All That

By Tom Soares

Let’s get real for a second: unless you are a movie critic, an Addison Rae aficionado or someone who harbors sadistic entertainment tendencies, there’s a huge chance He’s All That, Netflix gender-swapped reboot for 1991 rom-com She’s All That, is not for you.

Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls) and with Rae starring as Padgett Sawyer, a high school student who gets dragged into some drama when she catches her social media famous boyfriend cheating on her and accidentally broadcasts it live on the internet, He’s All That is exactly what everyone expected it to be when it was announced by Miramax in September last year: a ninety-one minute-long cringe fest.

When Padgett takes on a bet to turn Cali High School's least popular student, Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan), into the next prom king as a way to regain her internet following and sponsorship, she realizes her feelings for him may take both of them on a much different journey.

Notwithstanding having a very clear audience and an unfortunate commercial value due to real-life scandals - a recent segment of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fellow featuring Addison Rae drew heavy backlash last March when the TikToker performed eight dance trends on the show without giving proper recognition to the creators, many of them POC - He’s All That surpasses any definition of what it means to be a bad movie, not only because of Rae’s dreadful acting chops, but also because the entire film seemed to have been built solely upon the idea of pleasing her massive social media following. 

Rae’s inability to deliver her lines in a convincing manner, and without giving the impression that she was reading straight up from a terrible and constipated script, was a huge turn off. And it also didn’t help that her supporting cast, from Tanner Buchanan to Peyton Meyer and Madison Petti, was just as weak altogether.

However, it would be easy to place all the blame for the abysmal quality of He’s All That squarely on Addison Rae’s shoulders, when the movie lacked both leadership and direction, as if Mark Waters was nowhere to be found during production. Waters, a veteran filmmaker who in the past directed Mean Girls, Freaky Friday and Just Like Heaven, three of the most beloved movies of the early 2000’s, should have known better than to trust his filmmaking legacy in the hands of someone who wouldn’t be able to act to save her own life, after all Addison Rae is no Lindsay Lohan - and she’s definitely no Reese Witherspoon.

Under Waters direction, He’s All That flows with the smoothness of a mudslide, with disjointed acts and the worst dialogue you’ll hear this entire year.

It really should come to no surprise how terrible He’s All That is, especially considering everything that was against it from the get go. Unfortunately, there is zero doubt right now that Addison Rae’s faithful followers will come through, and maybe even secure future projects for her. Let’s just hope that between now and then she’ll dedicate some time to learn the craft.

He’s All That can be watched right now on Netflix.