Woody and Goody do the swap thing
If I wanted to be really critical I would have to say that "It's a Boy Girl Thing" is not a good movie as it employs that old favourite body swap idea and places it in a high school setting with two totally opposite teenage neighbours switching bodies. Everything about the movie is obvious and seriously predictable with jokes which are pinched out of any other body swap movie whilst also attempting to deliver a touch of the gross out comedy of the "American Pie" movies. But despite being both obvious and predictable without a scrap of originality "It's a Boy Girl Thing" is a fun movie which may not be memorable but delivers the laughs you expect.
Nell Bedworth (Samaire Armstrong - Not Another Teen Movie) and Woody Deane (Kevin Zegers - Dawn of the Dead) live next door to each other and go to the same high school but they are total opposites with Nell being a straight laced academic good girl whilst Woody is the popular sports jock and they most definitely don't get on. But something strange happens the day after a school trip to a museum as they wake up in the wrong bodies as their souls swap places. Initially confused both see it as an opportunity to sabotage each others lives but it doesn't take long for them to realise that they will have to start working together to get through this mess.
It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out where "It's a Boy Girl Thing" will all go once we get the set up of the total opposite teenage neighbours and the body swap out of the way with. You can easily guess that what follows is a series of chapters going from the initial confusion as Nell and Woody wake up to be stuck in the wrong body and you can just as easily predict that they will try to sabotage each others lives before the realisation that they need to work together as both have big days coming up with football games and college interviews. And being very obvious you know that having worked together they will start to have feelings for each other which may or may not stay if they ever manage to swap bodies back. Basically everything about the story is obvious and part of me finds it disappointing that there isn't some really clever new angle on an old idea but at the same time it is fun.
Ignoring the romantic fluff which all the comedy leads to and it feels like "It's a Boy Girl Thing" is trying to be almost an "American Pie" style body swap movie with plenty of comedy which veers towards gross. So whilst you get the expected innocent humour of the confusion of being in the wrong bodies you then have jokes such as Nell inside Woody's having to deal with his morning hard on whilst at the same time you have Woody in Nell's body having to suddenly deal with breasts. And so it goes on with more gags about Brazilians and women's showers which all feel like it's trying to be risque in the same manner as "American Pie" but never quite pulling it off. In fact the best of the jokes come whilst they are trying to sabotage each others lives and watching the prissy Nell suddenly dress sluttish is quite amusing whilst Woody turning all sensitive is just as much fun even if it is all very obvious. But that is the thing most of the humour is obvious yet that isn't necessarily a bad thing because the jokes work, they make you at least smile if not laugh.
And keeping up the theme of being obvious the casting and performances are well obvious. Kevin Zegers as Woody has the sports jock down perfectly whilst also being youthfully handsome in a very Zac Efron sort of way. And at the same time Samaire Armstrong has the prissiness of Nell working perfectly but obviously is very attractive behind the safe clothes and straight laced academic nature. Basically their performances and characters work but then they could have come out of any other teenage movie. What is sort of annoying is the missed opportunity because Sharon Osbourne is cast as Woody's mother but she gets so little to do that Sharon's character never really comes across.
What this all boils down to is that "It's a Boy Girl Thing" is a fun movie despite every ounce of it being completely obvious. From the storyline to the humour there is little which doesn't feel unexpected and even the attempts to be crude with body gags such as Brazilians, boobs and boners fails to really make it either different or memorable. But "It's a Boy Girl Thing" is a fun movie which delivers pretty much everything you expect including the occasional laugh.
