Wild Child (2008) Emma Roberts, Lexi Ainsworth, Shelby Young, Johnny Pacar, Aidan Quinn, Natasha Richardson Movie Review

Wild Child (2008)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Emma Roberts in Wild Child (2008)

Private Academy

Poppy Moore's (Emma Roberts) spoilt brat antics have gone too far and her father Gerry (Aidan Quinn) has had enough so he sends her to the UK and to Abbey Mount, the strict boarding school that her late mother attended. It doesn't take long for Poppy's antics to cause her several enemies as she refuses to conform to the school's ways and intentionally winds up school disciplinarian Mrs. Kingsley (Natasha Richardson) in the hope her antics will see her booted out. But that all changes when she meets Freddie (Alex Pettyfer) Mrs. Kingsley's dishy son and now she needs to make sure she stays.

So "Wild Child" is really just "Police Academy" in disguise. Think about it, Steve Guttenberg's character in "Police Academy" wanted to get thrown out, others wanted to throw him out but then he got a reason to stay. It is exactly the same in "Wild Child" with the character of Poppy wanting out, others wanting to get rid of her until she finds herself falling for the dishy Freddie. But on top of the storyline we get some "Mean Girls", teen movie antics as we have the school's head girl thinking she rules the roost and so on.

Alex Pettyfer in Wild Child (2008)

Now technically on one hand this makes "Wild Child" the sort of movie you don't need to think about and could have been a total nonsense if it wasn't for Emma Roberts. The then young Roberts plays the part of Poppy surprisingly well, making her an amusingly annoying spoilt brat but then bringing out the nice girl parts with just the right amount of softening. And surrounding Roberts are a variety of actors and actresses which either feel like you have seen them before or recognize their characters which adds to the general easy to watch nature.

What this all boils down to is that "Wild Child" is simply a movie for the teen crowd of 2008, using a familiar theme, familiar humour but fresh teen actors. The most surprising thing about "Wild Child" is almost a decade after it was made it is still entertaining.


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