Zapped Again

As tedious and underwhelming as its lackluster predecessor, Zapped Again follows affable teen Kevin Matthews (Todd Eric Andrews) as his arrival at a new school is met with derision by bullies and the opposite sex. Kevin’s efforts to make friends eventually leads him to the school’s science club, where he meets and falls for a fetching fellow student named Lucy (Kelli Williams). Perhaps inevitably, Kevin’s newfound association with the science club is threatened by the aforementioned bullies – with the character’s fate changed dramatically by the discovery of a magic potion that affords the drinker mind-controlling telekinetic powers. Kevin initially uses these powers to perform a series of juvenile pranks (eg lifting the skirt of his attractive teacher), but it’s not long before the eager teenager decides to employ his powerful abilities against the bullies that continue to torment him (and his friends). It’s not terribly surprising to discover that Zapped Again suffers from a pervasively (and aggressively) broad sensibility that grows more and more pronounced as time progresses, with Andrews’ smug, over-the-top performance effectively exacerbating the movie’s less-than-engrossing feel. The absence of an interesting storyline, coupled with a total lack of laughs, ensures that the film’s 96 minutes feel very long indeed, and there’s little doubt that the failure of both Zapped! and Zapped Again is curious, to say the least, given the massive potential afforded by the outrageous premise.

*1/2 out of ****