Love Don't Cost a Thing (2003) Reviews

• It was good.

  jwhale93822005-08-10

  I liked it. It was nothing special, but I liked it. It was a good story about issues that most teens deal with everyday. And it was funny. In the movie, Alvin (Cannon) is a nobody who wants to be a popular somebody. As somebody who once wished he could be more popular in high school, I completely understand where Alvin was coming from. So when popular cheerleader, Paris (Milian) gets into a jam, Alvin offers to help her if she pretends to be his girlfriend. But Alvin soon finds out that there's more to popularity than he realized. As Paris puts it, "Popularity is like a job" and you have to "work" to keep up with everyone else. In the end, Alvin learns that it's far more rewarding to just be himself. (There's a cliché we never get tired of hearing.) I thought the acting in the movie was great. Nick, Christina and the rest of the cast were believable in their roles, but still managed to stay funny. I especially liked Steve Harvey, playing Nick Cannon's 'Stuck in the 70's' dad. This movie may not be 10/10 great, but if you're looking for a good date movie, you may want to consider this one.

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• Bad remake

  CranberriAppl2010-12-21

  Can't Buy Me Love was such a great 80s movie, and while Nick Cannon is a cutie, he's no Patrick Dempsey and his character had none of the charm. This is up there w/Psycho (1998) and The Manchurian Candidate as remakes that should have never been made. It was just wasn't good. I was 20 when this movie was made, so I was right in the demo for it, but I definitely prefer CBML. Cannon and Milian had enough chemistry which helped, but the film was still lacking. Even though the plot line had different elements (not an exact copy), it still didn't try to be its own film. For example, The Shop Around the Corner, In The Good Old Summertime, and You've Got Mail are all the same story with the last two being remakes of the first. However, what these movies did was allow themselves to be unique in the minds of viewers--introducing different elements in their updates (music in 'Summertime' and AOL in 'Mail'). I wanted to like the movie bc I was hoping it would remind me of Clueless or She's All That, or some of the other teen comedies I remember, but it didn't.

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• OK for a remake but charmless

  crimson_n_clover2008-06-02

  I don't know what the original poster is talking about.This movie is nothing like "Drive Me Crazy" and is a scene by scene copy of the original source "Can't Buy Me Love".I thought it was a cute remake but loses some of the charm from the original.For one Nick Cannon never seemed close to his nerd buddies like Patrick Dempsey did.The end was rushed.I was crying with Patrick's character when the entire school shut him out but then he stood up to the bully who had been a good friend of his once.This movie was simply missing the charm of the first one.The girl that Alvin like was a pain to me.I couldn't see why he liked her but the girlfriend in the first one played the role better.

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• It may not cost a thing, but you'd have to *pay* me to re-watch a mere second of this

  TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews2009-09-12

  I have not had any exposure to the original, though there is no doubt in my mind that it is superior, simply because the opposite would not seem possible. Beyond all else, I feel a great deal of sympathy for everyone who had anything to do with this, and anyone who has tried to fix their eyes upon a screen that was showing it. I don't know where this went wrong. Maybe it was a bad idea to hire some actress to write and helm a flick. I honestly don't know if Milian can act, since no one in this appear to have even a smidgen of a hint of talent in the craft, and it may, at least partially, be related to the direction. Heck, not everything in this is awful. It's just that the potency of the "suck" overpowers what relatively little of this that doesn't blow. This is a predictable, tasteless, embarrassing excuse for a romantic teen sex romp. Nobody gets through with their dignity intact. The barrier between the popular kids and the ones not considered "cool" is ridiculously excessive in this, and you find yourself not believing that much of anything that occurs in this could happen in any conceivable universe. This never made me laugh. The "humor" is forced and tries way too hard. Stooping to the lowest common denominator seldom looks *quite* this ugly. The plot slowly unfolds between this cast of caricatures, with nigh a single surprise along the way. There's some eye-candy in this. A bit of the music is OK. I recommend this solely to people who watch all they can get near of this genre of… *sigh*… movie. 1/10

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• "Love doesn't cost a thing," except your dignity and maybe 100 minutes of your life

  dee.reid2005-01-10

  I'll be fair in saying that I didn't have high hopes for Troy Beyer's "Love Don't Cost A Thing," a movie that stars Nick Cannon and singer Christina Milian in an "urbanized" remake of the 1987 romantic comedy, "Can't Buy Me Love." Original "Can't Buy Me Love" scriptwriter Michael Swerdlick contributes to Beyer's remake script, which features Cannon and Milian in the roles of the geek and the beauty, two roles made famous in 1987 by Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Petersen. Cannon plays Alvin Johnson a.k.a. "Pool Boy" (he gets his name because he cleans people's swimming pools) and Milian plays Paris Morgan, the most popular girl in school. Alvin is a bit of an automotive genius, if nothing else, since he's trying to win a scholarship to a tech school with the high-tech engine that he and his friends have constructed. Alvin is tired of being made fun of by the popular kids and decides that he wants a piece of the action, but is unsure of where to search; his friends naturally think he's crazy for thinking up such a scheme. But he's not hearing that though, and he wants memories of their high school years. He gets his chance when Paris crashes her mom's Cadillac Escalade and he offers to do the repairs. In return, however, she must pose as his girlfriend - for two weeks. Alvin and Paris of course face the strident scorn of the cool kids and pretty soon Alvin grows pretty attached to his newfound fame. Without really realizing it, he forgets what he already had, being that he makes pariahs out of his best friends, frightens his parents especially the father (Steve Harvey) with his strange behavior, and Paris soon begins to miss the geeky Alvin that she really liked. "Love Don't Cost A Thing" retreads the familiar territory of most of the high school comedies of yesteryear: the uncool guy gets the pretty girl - after his plan has been exposed - and everything gradually returns to normalcy, and tries to make amends with his friends that he forgot while on his path to glory. For the first half, "Love" is actually quite fun to watch, and even it brought back memories of my high school career, which I left behind when I graduated in June of 2004. The second half is where we run into trouble, not because of directing and poor scriptwriting or any other technical difficulties, but because Cannon's transformation seemed to be really... something. I'll be the first to admit that he does some pretty mean things to his friends and to Paris while on his ego trip of popularity; even this is too much and made a little too believable and for that I really despised Alvin for what he did. Cannon and Milian are a great couple and have great chemistry, but I remembered where it's all going to lead eventually, which is in that same direction that most teen comedies go. The biggest perk out of it all is that "Love" doesn't resort to gross-out humor and sex gags to really win the interest of the viewer, and for that I'm grateful. Other than that, there's not much else. ***NOTE*** There's one scene that never ceases to amaze me, and that's when Alvin first serves up his proposal to Paris. He makes his move, Paris asks what he wants in return. Alvin looks away, and out comes the priceless line, "Oh what? You think I'm some cheap 'ho?" Alvin of course replies, "No, no sex. I just want to rent you." Paris considers, and then agrees to being his girl. And she puts her foot down about him not thinking about sex, or looking at her booty. Priceless. "Love Don't Cost A Thing" buys a 5/10

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