10 Things I Hate About You 1999 Starring Heath Ledger Julia Stiles

Surprisingly excellent teen comedy

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The 80s were a big time for the teen genre; it seemed like almost every week there was a new teen movie opening, but with the end of the 80s and the end of the John Hughes era seemed to be the end of the teen genre. While there were still some teen movies produced in the 90s they didn't seem to get over as well. But towards the late 90s with the success of the TV series Dawson's Creek and the American Pie franchise suddenly the teen genre was back in a big way. What followed were mostly lackluster movie, but 10 Things I Hate About You is one of the better ones to follow.

Clichés are a very odd thing; sometimes they can do a movie in due to how predictable it is where as other times they help make the movie enjoyable. 10 Things I Hate About You is one of the movies where the clichés actually help and make the movie a lot of fun. We've seen movies like this done back in the 80s and overall done better, but there is just something about this movie that works really well and it comes out very enjoyable.

I have no problem with sexuality in movies it's a shame in these PC days everyone seems to complain, but it's kind of nice not having any of that. At first the sexual gags are fun, but then other filmmakers see that and try and up the ante and it's no longer fun. It becomes doing these gags for the sake of it. 10 Things I Hate About You goes back and does things more simple and simply just aims to make you laugh and entertain you and it very much gets the job done.

The screenplay by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith was very well written with excellent and characters with plenty of depth; all the usual type characters are here; the jock, the pretty popular girl, the guy in love with the popular girl, the outcast and the bad boy. With all of that one would think this movie would probably fail, but to the credit of the writers they take the basic teen movie formula and work it well and write a very entertaining movie.

Director Gil Junger pretty much delivers the text book teen movie direction and like the writing instead of hurting it really works well despite any clichés. When doing a teen flick there are often silly and over the top moments; sometimes they work and sometimes they fell flat. But here the over the top moments are well done and believable.

10 Things I Hate About You in my opinion is a much better movie than one might think. The movie has a lot of heart and a great message of just be yourself. This is the type of movie that is a great pick up if you are feeling down. At least for me it works like that and entertains me for 90-minutes and puts a smile on my face and despite any flaws that is all that matters. How the movie ends shouldn't come as much of a shocker to the audience. I think it's safe to know from the very start once the plot kicks in how this will all turn out. But again despite all this 10 Things really works so well and is one of the better teen flicks of the 90s and quite honestly would make my top 10 teen comedies, I really enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would.

I'm not gonna jump on the let's all praise Heath Ledger, which due to his tragic death a lot of people are now doing. Heath Ledger was a very talented actor and despite being an Oscar nominated actor didn't fully reach his potential. I think the future was very bright for him and he would have lived up to that potential. But here in 10 Things he was really great. He played the typical teen movie bad boy with another side. And he does it so well and brings so much to the role. His character was one of the leads and honestly it could have been a boring clichéd character, but Ledger brought so much and almost makes it fresh. Julia Stiles I also really liked; her character was a lot of fun and any scene with her and Heath Ledger worked great.

The rest of the cast is excellent as well, but in my opinion Larry Miller as the over-protective father steals the show. I've always liked Larry Miller; he's one of those guys that seems to always pop up. You might not always know his name, but you'll know his face. Even in the smallest of roles he always delivers and in 10 Things I Hate About You he clearly steals the show.

Teen driven movies often hire actors in their mid to late 20s and even as old as early 30s. While that isn't old, but for playing a teenager it sure is. So it's really refreshing to see a movie about teenagers and all the actors very close to the ages. Most of the cast in the movie were very close to the ages of their characters at the time of filming.

In closing, while 10 Things I Hate About You may not be the most original teen comedy what it lacks in originality it makes up in just pure fun. This movie is a blast from beginning, middle to end. The highlight of the movie is Heath Ledger singing Just too Good to Be True in the bleachers to Julia Stiles.