Sydney White on DVD

“Does anyone know another word for douchebagery? I don’t want to repeat it a third time.”

Amanda Bynes stars as a Sydney White, a girl raised by her plumber father (John Schneider) who goes away to college and has a hard time fitting in as she pledges her mother’s sorority. The movie follows a basic structure of Snow White with the young girl fighting off a witch (Sara Paxton), meeting a Prince (Matt Long), and eventually moving in with seven odd fellows. For more on the basic plot of the film check out the original review.

Not all things improve with multiple viewings, as Sydney White can attest. It’s not quite cheesy enough to be a guilty pleasure and certainly not smart enough to take seriously. And the extras provided here on this one-disc collection are actually harder to watch than the film itself.

“Sydney and Her Prince,” “Kappa’s Forever?,” and “The Original Dork” featurettes all show cast and crew gushing about how much the love each other and what a wonderful experience making this film was for each of them. You’ve seen these types of “features” before, although this DVD sure seems intent on making understand how great all these people are. None of these give you insight on the cast or crew and they run dangerously close to propaganda (but after being stuck in this turkey I understand the need for some self-promotion).

The DVD also includes two featurettes about the dorks - “Meet the Dorks” and “Welcome to the Vortex.” The first gives the dorks a chance to mug for the camera and talk about how awesome it was working with the other dorks, and the second appears to have been set-up to travel the set of the dork’s home, but doesn’t show us anything new or travel around the set due to the constant interruption of the nerds themselves. Also included are some forgettable deleted scenes, a short featurette on the Snooze the puppet, and one of the most boring blooper reels I’ve ever sat through. There’s nothing here to add to add value to the DVD.

You sort of want to like Sidney White. It’s filled with nice people, it’s sweet and goofy, but it’s as appetizing as a year-old rice cake. If you are a 7 to 13 year-old girl you might find some fun here. From script to DVD Sidney White comes off as a cute girl trying to get through life on her looks alone and unwilling to put in anything more than the bare minimum token effort on anything else.