Sydney White

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Sydney White (C+). After allseeing all these heavy Oscar nominees, I was ready to lighten up with a fluffy little teenybopper flick. This movie, starring Amanda Bynes (Hairspray) as the title character, was it. The premise seemed cute--update Snow White by setting it on a modern day college campus. And so we have down-to-earth, good-hearted, good-natured Sydney trying to get into her (deceased) mother's sorority as a new college freshman. Lo! The sorority is ruled by an evil rhymes-with-witch who kicks her out. She lands in an eyesore of a house on Greek row that happens to be inhabited by (you guessed it) seven dorks. And there are lots of other parallels to the original Disney film. I had a few chuckles, but there's really not a whole lot to this movie. And it earns a PG-13 rating for some gratuitous and jarring bad language that could easily have been stripped out to make this a suitable movie for the 13-and-under crowd.