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'House Bunny' hop? More like bunny-flop

n Anna Faris served as the only saving grace of this awkward 'makeover...coming-of-age flick'

By Stephanie Rancier

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Published: Friday, August 29, 2008

Updated: Monday, March 1, 2010

You've worked your butt off, prepared until you were dizzy and now the time has come…for your group of co-workers to screw it all up. Everyone's been in a situation where others have negatively affected or completely destroyed something they've given 110 percent to. Anna Faris can definitely relate to this after her fellow castmates of "The House Bunny" stunk up movie theaters last weekend.

Shelley (Anna Faris) is a Playboy bunny who lives in Hugh Hefner's mansion with him and his three girlfriends. Ever since her orphaned childhood, Shelley has dreamt of nothing but being noticed and special. Becoming the new November centerfold would fulfill all of her life-long dreams.

What Shelley didn't realize is that bunnies don't have a long life expectancy. On the morning after her 27th birthday bash, Shelley received word from 'Hef' that she was to vacate the premises immediately.

All that time, she had kept up with her tanning, waxing and silicone filling. It never occured to her that her age could be her single, involuntary downfall.

After returning to destitution and being forced to live in her car, Shelley overheard some girls talking about a new mixed drink at a party. Shelley followed the girls to what she thought looked like a mini-version of her previous life of decadence - a sorority house. But, of course, the beautiful white house was filled with snooty sorority sisters and housemothers who turned down the ditsy blonde ex-Bunny.

The only place that would accept Shelley as a housemother was Zeta, the "loser" sorority on campus. The Zeta girls were in dire need of a makeover, 30 pledges and a drastically increased cool factor, and Shelley was just the girl for the job.

She managed to transform the fugly into hotness and the dorks into queen bees. Believe it or not, during her hectic beautification schedule, Shelley managed to find a new boy toy, Oliver (Collin Hanks).

Of course, no girly makeover, coming-of-age flick would be complete without some major drama, right? If the girls of Zeta can't find at least 30 girls to pledge their formerly-drab sorority, then the house will be bought by their rival sorority. However, in Shelley's quest to beautify this group of misfits, she unknowingly created a new class of mean girl monsters. So remains the age-old question of what's more important: your outward appearance, or who you really are inside?

The cast of "The House Bunny" includes Rumor Willis, Collin Hanks (Tom Hanks' son) and Katherine McPhee from "American Idol." Hanks and McPhee weren't bad, but little Miss Rumor obviously didn't receive any acting talent from the gene pool.

Basically, everyone but Faris needs to return to acting school immediately because most of the performances in this movie were just plain painful.

The most memorable supporting characters include an outrageously dorky redhead named Natalie (Emma Stone), a pregnant girl (McPhee), a metal-faced stoner-looking chick (Kat Dennings) and a very man-ish girl (Dana Goodman) who would be a great candidate for those Geico caveman commercials. Goodman's and Stone's characters were outrageous in every horrible meaning of the word, while McPhee's and Dennings' characters were smartly underplayed.

The only actor in this movie who succeeded in the comedic sense was Faris. She's kind of like our version of Lucille Ball on crack, but in a good way.

Part of me feels bad for Anna Faris for making this movie with these people, but the other part thinks she was being pretty smart. They almost made her look like an Oscar contender.

In other words, don't see this movie unless you are a die-hard Anna Faris fan, a 12-year-old girl or maturely stunted and possibly a sexually confused young man.

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