Dunst’s credible role balances ‘Get Over It’ slapstick

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In Theaters

GET OVER IT. 90 minutes, PG-13, directed by Tommy O’Haver, written by R. Lee Fleming Jr.

The blueprint for Tommy O’Haver’s romantic comedy, “Get Over It,” was written years before its target audience of teens was even born. Hundreds of years before.

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” this perky little adaptation takes Shakespeare’s play and literally turns it into “A Midsummer Night’s Rockin’ Dream,” a bombastic musical rendition of the Bard for the high school set.

Just how does it do that? As in most teen-oriented films, it does so with the help of broken relationships, acne-free vixens, hysterical prima donnas, an infectious soundtrack and the promise of new love. Stereotypes and cliches abound, but O’Haver, working from a script by R. Lee Fleming (“She’s All That”), nevertheless, manages to spark the thin story with a likable cast and some genuinely funny moments.

The film stars Ben Foster (“Freaks and Geeks”) as Berke Landers, an ordinary jock who’s extraordinary girlfriend, Allison (Melissa Sagemiller), dumps him after she becomes star-struck by Striker (Shane West), a former member of a boy band called the Swingtown Lads whose calling card is his British accent – and the fact that he’s traveled the world.

Ben’s friends Felix (Colin Hanks) and Dennis (rap star Sisqo) urge Ben to just get over it, but Ben, hopelessly in love, is desperate to get Allison back. With the help of Felix’s younger sister, Kelly (Kirsten Dunst), a sweet, talented singer who secretly has a crush on Berke, Berke decides to prove to Allison once and for all that he’s not just another dumb jock.

Without an ounce of acting experience or much of a singing voice, Berke, along with Kelly’s help, tries out for “A Midsummer Night’s Rockin’ Dream,” the flamboyant new musical directed by the equally flamboyant Dr. Desmond Forrest-Oates (Martin Short), a hilarious character who not only steals each scene he’s in, but who’s clearly meant to spoof Corky St. Clair in Christopher Guest’s “Waiting for Guffman.”

Fueled by campy remakes of “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “September” – not to mention fleeting appearances by Carmen Electra and pop singer Vitamin C – “Get Over It” is at its best with Kirsten Dunst.

Just as she did in last year’s “Bring it On,” Dunst grounds a movie that could have become just another throwaway teen romp. Unlike the rest of the cast, she doesn’t allow her character to come off as a caricature; instead, she infuses Kelly with enough heart and intelligence to counterbalance the film’s fondness for slapstick. That proves a smart move – and one more reason audiences should look for Dunst in the future.

Grade: B-

On Video

THE TAO OF STEVE. 90 minutes, R, directed by Jenniphr Goodman, written by Duncan North with Greer and Jenniphr Goodman.

Overweight male slackers in need of a date should pay attention to Jenniphr Goodman’s “The Tao of Steve,” a romantic comedy that offers three helpful dating rules for those longing to be a “chick magnet.”

Rule 1: “Eliminate your desires. If you’re out with a girl and you’re thinking about [having sex], you’re finished. A woman can smell an agenda.”

Rule 2: “You have to do something excellent in her presence, therefore proving your sexual worthiness.”

Rule 3: “After you eliminate desire – and after you’ve proved your excellence – you must retreat.”

Armed with these rules, which are a peculiar combination of the philosophies of Lao Tzu, German philosopher Martin Heidegger and comedian Groucho Marx, one should be as irresistible as our unlikely hero, Dex (Donal Logue), whose pendulous belly, reminiscent of Buddha’s, is the first thing one sees as the film opens.

About that belly – if it isn’t the star of the film, it comes close. Throughout, Goodman keeps her camera trained on it as Dex himself pats and rubs it. It’s meant to be in jarring contrast to what Dex used to be – the big man on campus – and it is, but one also senses that Dex uses it as a device to keep real love at bay, something that’s challenged when he meets and falls hard for Syd (Greer Goodman), a smart, beautiful woman immune to the rules Dex has lived by for years.

Much of the film’s substantial charm comes from Logue, who won a special jury prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival for his performance. But as the film deepens into its issues of love and honesty, right vs. wrong, the tone changes. These rules, as foolproof as they may be, have serious ramifications, which Goodman explores to a satisfying – if predictable – ending.

Grade: B+

THE 6TH DAY. 124 minutes, PG-13, directed by Roger Spottiswoode, written by Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley.

Right on the heels of recent reports that human cloning will soon become a reality comes Roger Spottiswoode’s “The 6th Day,” a futuristic thriller about the not-so-surprisingly ugly ramifications of human cloning.

The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Adam Gibson, a family man who lives in a world where parents regularly clone their children’s dead pets so nobody ever has to suffer the hardship of finding Fluffy doubling as a hassock in the living room.

But when Gibson returns home one evening to find a clone of himself seated at the dinner table with his family, it becomes clear that this whole cloning business has gotten out of hand. Now under siege by a bunch of clone-happy operatives led by Tony Goldwyn and Robert Duvall, Gibson predictably hits the road running in an effort to stay alive while trying to find out why he was targeted for cloning.

Cormac and Marianne Wibberley’s script distills the ethical and moral issues surrounding human cloning into neat soundbites, some of which are intentionally funny, but most of which, in their amusing effort to be profound, only manage to bear the combined intellectual weight of the Doublemint twins.

Not that anyone will be renting this film to decide whether it’s morally right to resurrect grandpa from the grave. They’ll be expecting action, which “The 6th Day” has, but it’s never as thrilling or as ingeniously conceived as the action scenes in Schwarzenegger’s best films, “The Terminator” and “Terminator 2.”

Indeed, a good part of “The 6th Day” is so caught up in ethics, it forgets it’s supposed to be an action film. Throughout much of it, audiences might be better off closing their eyes and counting the offspring of Dolly the sheep.

Grade: C+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6.

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Almost Famous ? A

The Crew ? D

The Legend of Drunken Master ? B+

Remember the Titans ? D

The 6th Day ? C+

The Tao of Steve ? B+

Meet the Parents ? B+

Wonder Boys ? A

Bedazzled ? B-

Lost Souls ? F

Nurse Betty ? C+

Beautiful ? D

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II ? F

The Original Kings of Comedy ? B+

The Watcher ? F

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle ? D

Bless the Child ? D

Bring it On ? B+

Get Carter ? D-

Woman on Top ? B+

Urban Legends: Final Cut ? D-

Whipped ? F-

Cecil B. Demented ? C

Dinosaur ? B

Dr. T and the Women ? D

The Eyes of Tammy Faye ? B+