Certainly no less believable than the rest of the Elizabethan comedy genre, “She’s the Man” works if you can still tap into that part of you that requires you not only suspend disbelief, but expel it with

extreme prejudice and drag its permanent record through the mud.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” the fluffy, harmless “She’s the Man” aims for the 12-year-old part of your psyche about one step above “sitting in Santa’s lap,” territory, where you still believe

high school sweethearts can last forever in a priveleged California summer populated by thin, beautiful people who wear no designer logos and never swear. The difference? “Twelfth Night” gave us “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage” and “you are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on Dutchman’s beard.” “She’s the Man” gives us “Do you like cheese?” “More than almost any other animal byproduct!”

Two thirds of the writing team was responsible for “Legally Blonde” and “Ten Things I Hate About You.” This is either reason for instant boycott or all the more reason to see it, depending on personal

preference. Still, the plot is as flimsy as any Shakespeare invented. His was quotable poetry, but it was still intended for the masses. As the meta-before-his-time bard said in the source material, “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.” This is especially true in the fact that in the reducing and altering of the plot for its incarnation as a feature-length commercial for Axe body spray, the screenwriters have forgotten to include any forces of evil conspiring against the protagonists. At the last moment, they reinvented the wicked Malvolio character, Malcolm, with all the skills of a three-year-old with a pot of flour paste.

Meanwhile, love-to-be-scared-of-him Vinnie Jones, former monster soccer player himself, plays the hard-driving lippy British coach and proves himself just as comfortable around squeaky-clean teenagers as around the usual rag-tag group of criminal sterotypes that make up the rest of Guy Ritchie’s stable of actors. And his presence usually signifies a nearby slow-motion, Gatorade-soaked paean to kicking the

ball in the goal that benefit from most of the enjoyable cinematography.

In her largest big-screen role yet, Amanda Bynes’ stars as Viola. Masquerading as her brother (the pretenses are unimportant), her charade is broadly unconvincing, but so looney it’s entertaining. You

almost get the feeling that all the other characters in the movie would rather watch her bluff and blunder as a boy – think Tobey Maguire doing an intentionally bad Ali G impersonation. She is the only actor who stands out – the rest of the cast might as well be played by Barbie dolls – and that’s not just because she’s in drag most of the time. She’s unobtrustively wholesome and lets herself do nearly silent film-style physical comedy (there’s a great scene where she snarls down a chicken leg at a Junior League gathering). Let’s just hope she doesn’t mix with the rest of the teen romance/comedy leads and start clubbing with Lindsay Lohan.

David Cross is stagnant as the kind of hopeless sketch-comedy headmaster character he’s practically patented but never perfected. Cross should have stuck to stand-up comedy about pop culture minutae

like “Squagels” – the “I played soccer once, or was it chess?” schtick wears thin fast. His ideas on how to play a character outnumber the hairs on his head, but just by one (and he’s, you know, bald, and

all).

“She’s the Man” is direct-to-soundtrack CD cinema. If you think about it afterwards, you have no idea why you cared if any of the generic beautiful trustafarians lived happily ever after in their Babylon of

debutante balls and spaghetti straps and beach soccer games. But don’t worry — you won’t think about it afterward.

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in the theater anymore.