`Whatever it Takes’ works as loose `Cyrano’ remake

In theaters

WHATEVER IT TAKES. Directed by David Rayner. Written by Mark Schwahn. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated PG-13.

The blueprint for David Rayner’s romantic teen comedy, “Whatever it Takes,” was written long before most teens were even a blip in their great-grandparents’ eyes.

Loosely based on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” this perky little adaptation takes Rostand’s famous tale and staples every teen cliche to it — hysterical prima donnas, acne-free vixens, the never-ending battle between the popular and the unpopular, fart jokes galore and sex jokes ad nauseam.

Still, in spite of the cinematic ruts it travels in so neatly, the film rings truer than “Here on Earth.” It also stays remarkably afloat in its tried but true storyline of a boy helping another boy get the girl the former boy eventually realizes he wants for himself.

The film follows Ryan (Shane West), an unpopular accordion player (yes, he’s an accordion player) who is best friends with his next-door neighbor Maggie (Marla Sokoloff), a sweet, bookish girl who is everything Ryan wants in a girlfriend. Only Ryan doesn’t know it yet.

The reason he doesn’t know it yet isn’t just hormonal, but that he’s smitten with Ashley, a midriff-baring man trap who’s so easy she makes Monica Lewinsky look as if she graduated cum laude from Miss Marple’s School for the Well-Mannered and Well-Behaved.

Still, Ryan’s willing to do anything to snag Ashley as his girlfriend, so he strikes a deal with Ashley’s cousin Chris (James Franco), a dumb yet popular jock who happens to have a thing for Maggie: Together, these two will help each other win their girl.

Whatever. As predictable as all of this is (is there anyone who doesn’t know how this film will turn out?), “Whatever it Takes” is saved by its good performances, its likable characters and its surprisingly sharp wit, which lifts what could have been just another standard-issue teen flick. Grade: B

HERE ON EARTH. Directed by Mark Piznarski. Written by Michael Seitzman. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated PG-13.

With all of its elaborately staged sunsets, its ultra-schmaltzy score, its gee-whiz world of gee-whiz retro-teens, its drag races (yes, its drag races), its vanilla milkshakes and its apple pie candor, Mark Piznarski’s “Here on Earth” must be an extended joke — it just has to be.

There is nothing here that has anything to do with Earth as we know it now — unless, of course, you recently crawled out of a time capsule or happen to be Amish.

The film drops audiences straight into the Twilight Zone world of Putnam, Mass., a rustic, present-day Berkshires community that has the sweet smell of the 1950s all over it.

It opens with Kelley (Chris Kline), an arrogant, poor little rich boy at a nearby prep school who goes slumming with his friends at Mabel’s Table, an old-fashioned diner that’s a favorite with the blue-collar locals.

There, he meets and flirts with Samantha (Leelee Sobieski), which infuriates her boyfriend, Jasper (Josh Hartnett), and eventually leads to a testosterone-soaked drag race that destroys Mabel’s Table in a fiery explosion.

How are these boys punished for blowing up the beloved diner? Instead of eating bread and water in a rat-infested prison, where they belong, they’re ordered by a judge to rebuild that diner — which, over the course of a summer, also predictably repairs their own damaged characters.

But “Here on Earth” has more in mind than just being a character-building exercise for teens (stop reading if you don’t want to know more); it also wants to be a three-hanky tear-jerker that tears out your heart and stomps all over it, which it tries to accomplish by ruthlessly ripping off Arthur Hiller’s “Love Story.”

That’s right, somebody here is going to that big diner in the sky, but that won’t surprise anyone paying attention to Andrea Morricone’s swelling, unbelievably sappy score. Indeed, the violins for this film’s funeral march start singing 10 minutes into the movie.

None of this is the fault of the cast — Sobieski (“A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries,” “Eyes Wide Shut”) and Kline (“Election,” “American Pie”) are as good as they can be, given the material. But unless you’ve recently awakened from a 45-year coma, these characters, these situations and this town are not only ludicrous, but suggest this: If the title “What Planet Are You From” hadn’t already been taken by Garry Shandling’s recent bomb, it would have been perfectly fitting here. Grade: D+

Christopher Smith’s reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”