Sydney White: Predictable but cute

This update of Snow White transposes the old fairy tale onto a college campus. The evil witch is a sorority queen, her magic mirror is a “hot or not” website, the prince is president of his frat, the seven dwarves are seven dorks, and Amanda Bynes is Sydney White, an incoming freshman who dreams of following her dead mother’s footsteps and becoming a Kappa sister. Evil sorority head Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton) foils Sydney’s attempt to pledge, and she is taken in by the seven dorks, who live in a run-down house at the end of Greek Row, a blemish that Rachel plots to remove.

Sydney is supposed to be a dork herself and a tomboy—she was raised by her widower father, a plumber, and so lacks the feminine influence necessary to make her graceful and proper. She reads comic books and knows how to use a hammer. When she gets flustered she rambles with a weird, possibly North Dakotan affect. She also wears an awful lot of lip-gloss for a tomboy. We’re supposed to be charmed by her unconvincing stammering, doughy troll-doll face, and closely set cross-eyes, but the only really charming thing here is, occasionally, the seven dorks, who fall somewhere in between Revenge of the Nerds caricature and Freaks & Geeks sincerity (the latter’s Samm Levine essentially reprises his role as Neil Schweiber here). There’s the horny virgin dork, the allergic-to-everything dork, the angry blogger dork, the neurotic mute dork, the beanpole scientist dork, the gay boy-scout dork, and one dork whose only qualification seems to be that he’s Nigerian.

There’s the predictable romance, a school election, and a nonsensical climactic speech about how We’re All Dorks—even the bully football players and the conventionally attractive sorority sisters. Bynes is as cloying a heroine as you’d expect, but at least the dorks are cute.

SYDNEY WHITE DIR. JOE NUSSBAUM | RATED PG-13 | AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE