When "Zapped" was announced three weeks before the premiere on Disney Channel, I thought was another teenage movie with stereotypes, simple jokes and a moral lesson at the end as "Be yourself" or see the life of other person through his eyes. Well, that was come on my mind when I saw the commercial on Disney Channel. Do I was wrong? No, no and no! At the first five minutes (or ten) we are presented the routine of Zoey, a typical American teen. Her mother was married again and the girl needs to be patient with her new life. Before, she was the only daughter; attentions were always directed from her. And now, the three sons of her stepfather are living with them. This routine is shown of a fast way, at the beginning, the marriage ceremony and after, the change. Until here, nothing new I could see. But when Zoey goes for her new school is where I can see that teenage movies are really the same thing. It's how if all American schools are the same: full of stereotypes. The brain, the jock, the rebel, the recluse, the Beauty (this was perfectly shown on "The Breakfast Club"). Her tedious routine is broken when she downloads an app to control the dog and, accidentally, it's damaged. After this, she discovers that the app doesn't control animals anymore, but men. With this magical thing on her smart phone, Zoey has the chance to change the men as she wishes. Well, the movie is about this
and nothing more. There's no problem teach moral lessons, it's a good thing. Television must be a cultural and moral vehicle; it's really a marvelous thing. The problem is how it does this. Saying another way: how the movie work with this. The tendency is produce an easy film, short (between 80 and 100 minutes, more or less) and "packaged", moral lessons are thrown on the face. It's how if were any other way to teach these things for young people, it's how if they were donkeys (sorry, it's the only word that came to me) and with incapacity to create they own moral lessons. A "packaged" movie, it's a nice describe for "Zapped"! It's a teenage movie and because of that, the word that better describe is "predictable". With more or less 100 minutes, "Zapped" have moral lessons commons on this kind of film: friendship, brotherhood, family and so on. For kids or teens, a good movie, make laugh with simple and extremely predictable jokes. But for an adolescent or adult public, is a trouble. It's how if Disney and these films stopped in the time, in a world of stereotype schools and social types.
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ramonproducoes201114 August 2014
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Kkce040312 December 2014Wow. Really, Disney channel had to do this? When I saw the commercial for zapped i was pretty excited to see the movie, full of dancing and girls ruling the school ;). But that's the opposite of zapped. Summary--- Zoey's mom is marrying a man who was three sons and a huge dog and poor zoey is stuck in the middle. But when she finally moves in, the boys are nasty and drive Zoey crazy. Once she gets to school, she gets up close with the annoying, immature farting boys (Cliché ALERT) Then, she meets a nerd,of course..(Cliché ALERT) who helps her avoid the boys. She accidentally ends up in the wrong place and the teacher asks the cute guy to helps her find the class. Oy Vey. Then, it's heard from the lead popular girl that thats her ex- boyfriend. Must I go on?
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Shopaholic3530 January 2015I know this is a movie but it is a bit too unrealistic in my opinion. The whole scenario just doesn't seem plausible. First of all Zendaya's character would never wind up in this situation as her mother would never be attracted to a man like that and if she was their relationship would fall apart after living with children like his. Everybody is so obnoxious and rude.
The overall concept is interesting and once you get over the stupidity of it you can kind of enjoy it but it is super full of clichés and is pretty corny. Actually it's a little bit of an epic fail with a couple of fun and entertaining moments. I'm not sure but it could be the actors fault. As their characters develop towards the end they do get better though. It's just not a very successful movie. -
CruaverVoidDrake3 September 2014This is a movie about a girl without any logic of any kind. Her step family is all male thus in her attempt to find some control she gets a dog obedience app. This app gets mutated by some means that doesn't make logical sense. The result of this is that the app controls all human males. This results in a girl without any understanding of the consequences of her actions to make vague commands that spiral out of control changing stereotypical boys. She even forgets to lock her own phone. The obvious thing to do with any power you gain is to make sure no one else can use it without your permission. Not to mention this movie contains clichés such as "the tough guy is really a secret softy that comes through for the main character at the last second" and "the popular girl is always evil." This movie is a piece of trash that I suggest no one watch it.
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Todda751228 June 2014I have always liked Disney movies primarily because I can watch them with my kids without worry of them hearing or seeing something I would prefer they didn't, until I saw Zapped. Even my kids made comments about how it was "about controlling boys" and was "kind of insulting to boys". Those we're they're words, not mine. The movie is about a girl who downloads an app to her phone. The app is for training "dogs". The app turns out to have magical powers. The magical powers are that it allows the owner to control boys (implied dogs) with verbal commands. Anything the owner says into the phone, boys have to do. It's a dog training app, that controls boys. Does anyone see the (probably unintentional, but still there) unspoken message there? But that isn't all. Boys are presented as immature, "untrained", disgusting, farting, and ridiculous fools. And that is before the controlling app is even introduced. It was one of those movies that I kept growing more uncomfortable with the more it went on. I kept thinking, "OK, the whole demeaning-to-boys thing will end soon and it will get better". But it never did. If the gender of the characters were reversed in this movie and it portrayed girls like this, it never would have been released. Remember, the target audience of this movie is kids. What message is this movie relaying to kids? To boys, it says, "You should be embarrassed of yourself". Disappointing.
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aimless-4612 July 2014Ill-conceived and poorly executed Disney movie, probably the worst since "Princess Protection Program". The tone is "I Love Lucy" slapstick, arguably dumbed-down several notches even from that.
Zendaya is not a dramatic actor (actress), nor are most of the cast members. She does a good comic monologue at the start of the movie and then the wheels fall off. She would make an excellent news commentator, game show host, or comedy club performer, but her dramatic acting is borderline embarrassing. Oh for the days of Kay Panabaker or Amanda Bynes, who could have brought something (audience identification or actual comedy - respectively) to this role.
The strength of the production is Emilia McCarthy, who shows an unexpected range in the role of bad girl queen bee, nicely overplayed. It's extremely unusual to find a young actor with this much versatility. Like Juno Temple, McCarthy could believably play anything from an extreme airhead to an over-the-top queen bee like this one. And her physical appearance is the sort than adapts to sell a variety of personality types.
Although McCarthy helps attract boy viewers (who otherwise would despise this thing), she is the kiss of death for the rest of the cast because her scenes with them expose the staggering talent disparity for all to see.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.. -
eatthis123410 July 2014This had potential. Could have been better if they would have found a talented actress for the lead in the film. It is obvious that Disney is trying to make something of Zendaya but honestly she just can't handle the part. She turns in a cardboard performance, and the final dance scene didn't even appear to be choreographed, but instead just thrown together. Even the "evil" character was very bland and just so unbelievable. The actors were all obviously too old for high school as well.
I would not recommend this unless you are a big fan of Zendaya or Spencer and want to watch it for that reason only. -
Zendayas character really has a tough new constellation in her life. Her mother marries someone new and a lot of males (in form of a new father but especially in form of new brothers) come into her everyday life. But Zendaya herself survived this and it did not do anything bad to her career as another reviewer suggested 5 years ago.
I personally did not know her before Spiderman, but here we go, she obviously made movies way before that. And while this one is not a masterpiece - it's not a bad movie either. Predictable and full of cliches - but you can have fun with it. And if you are the target group (mostly girls, but especally teenagers), you migh even relish in it. Take it for what it is - a fun ride -
shannonev10118 July 2014This was one of the worst Disney channel original movies I have ever seen! I seriously need someone to tell me why they keep making these horrible original movies, even the old ones used to be better than these and they didn't have the graphics or anything 10 years ago. If you want a tip then don't watch it, every original movie Disney channel has produced in the last few years have basically been the same thing. The acting in this film is also a let down, I'm not saying it's absolutely terrible (I mean Zendaya was quite good) but something needs to be done about who the casting director is if that's all they can come up with. I mean come on it's Disney.
YOUR LETTING Disney DOWN! -
chubbydave31 August 2014Do you like Zendaya?
That's all you need to know. Zendaya is in this movie. If you like Zendaya, then you'll like the movie. If you don't like Zendaya, then... wait. Everyone likes Zendaya.
This has every essential ingredient of a teen movie: the new girl in school, the loner guy who seems aloof and doesn't care about high school hallway politics and popularity contests, the mean girl who for no reason at all takes a strong disliking to the new girl, the odd friend, the challenge, the moral lesson... It's all there. You could watch any teen movie from the 80s, and it's not much different except for the smart phone.
There is dancing in this movie, and it's pretty good. Z's character tries out for the school dance team, and the mean girl tries to prevent Z from making the team, but she hooks up with the JV dance team and competes against the elites.
At the end of the day, there's not a whole lot about this movie to make you want to give up an hour and a half of your life except Zendaya. -
phillipsmike7121 July 2014I watched this film out of curiosity just to see what it was like and it was the worst film ever, it was rather offensive to me. A magical phone app that controls boys in the hands of a teenage girl who apparently refused to accept boys for who they are, even if they have flaws. They tried to make it seem like all girls were perfect and boys were the cause of all problems but it showed that girls are not all that perfect as they claim to be and that they blame boys for their personal problems that boys are not the cause of. The mean girl in the film, she actually annoys me, she's proves that when she has the phone with the magical app that she's a criminal, well, she only acts like one and her friend, although not as mean as her but even the mean girl is mean to her.
But this whole film is demeaning to all boys, I'm a boy and I found this to be the idea of a woman, even though it was a man who directed it. This whole film seems to be screaming the term "Man-Haters" all over it. Zendaya as usual had to dance, the acting in this was horrible, the plot and story was nothing but garbage and insulting to boys. The whole time I watched it, I couldn't be more offended and I felt like hated every minute of it and everything about it. I find it demeaning and insulting to boys, I actually couldn't stop talking back to the film and the characters in it. I'm surprised this film didn't bomb. Although the thing about this film that satisfied me was that the girls in this finally learned that all boys are innocent and the girls were guilty of every evil thing through the whole plot and story. This film should never seen the light of day the minute they thought of it. I never hated any film in my whole life and this film is hateful to all boys and I think this film deserves to be hated for being the worst film ever and demeaning to boys. This film is nothing but an attack on boys and it screams "Man-Haters" all over. -
jegharikkeemail2 December 2020Fun charming family movie with a Twist - I love it great ending
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Dhlh1-751-49426819 February 2017It is an OK Strange Weird Series, but I do think there are 4 episodes available Right Now, I hope that if there is a season 2 they do better if the makers do a Season 2, But it does have its own strange Audience – or – Oddience, so go for making a Season 2 since hitting an Over Populated Oddience is really Rare, these days, they have gotten really good at Planning What Movie's & Series Will Do Best & At Catching the Broadest Spectrum of Viewers, and they plan it down to the tiniest bit of What Action Figures to Release and When To Release any part of any of a shows story line or anything, Its nice to see a series that was made to Look Like The Producers Are Saying WTF lets make something so strangely Ignorant it just has to either Fail Miserably or Become Shockingly Popular Simply Due to the Completely Off the Wall Lack of Any Direction Other Than Mess With The Silly Human From Earp, yea I meant Earth but Hey Earp Seems To More Closely Resemble What The F**k is Happening in The Real World These Days, So Why Not have a Series Where I am Beginning to Expect an Episode of This to have Several People Running Around Exclaiming Amuck, .Amuck, Amuck, and the Earthling asking the Bar Tender What are they doing, with his Reply What You've Never Seen People Running Amuck Before, I have Written Lots More of this Idea, But I will Stop Here Reality Is Calling Me, Like the Show Though
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Reno-Rangan4 February 2017I did not know why there was so much hate on this film. I never give any preference to those criticisms. Instead, I always prefer taking chances and that's how I saw this film. I was not expecting much. Like usual any Disney films, I thought it would be fun, but my prediction went totally wrong. I am really sorry to join those criticisers, but this film is the worst I have seen in many years. Seeing the bad films are part of my watch, but I never expected this low. The last time I rated this low probably half a decade ago.
There's nothing much different in the story comparing with other Disney films such as the recent 'Adventures in Babysitting' and 'The Swap'. But those films fared decently, while this one was utterly crap. Firstly, the cast was unbelievable. It was totally a disaster, including the lead, Zendaya. The only bright spot was the Chanelle Peloso.Especially the mean girl was very annoying. Not as a character, but as an actor with her character execution.
The film was based on the book called 'Boys are Dogs'. But the narration was very slow in the film, it took forever between each scene. Only by dragging the film got past the 90 minutes, otherwise it is an hour long film. Only her fans might enjoy it. Not even the little kids or the grown-ups would do that, so I totally recommend to stay away from it. I never used such words that I wrote here for my reviews. I regret for that, but the fact remains that the film is not good, not even average, only very bad.
2/10 -
SusieSalmonLikeTheFish31 January 2015I'm only eighteen, I'm not some middle-aged, ranting old lady. But only today's generation of cellular phone addicts and texting slaves would inspire Disney to make a movie called Zapped (emphasis on the word 'app' in 'zapped' was their intent, ugh). The characters were all cardboard cutouts of the trendy, popular cell phone-carrying, texting addict teens of today. I think movies should be teaching kids to stay away from cell phones, not to fall victim to the hoards of people who stumble through the streets constantly texting everyone. The plot was incredibly stupid, too! Basically an overly generic girl finds an app on her I-phone that can control boys around her. It's a dog-training app.
My little brother and sister hated it, so if Disney thinks kids like this kind of thing, well, only the sheep like movies like this, there are probably loads of other kids who don't like it, either. What ever happened to the days when on a rainy day or after school, you could have fun with Disney movies like Don't Look Under the Bed (1999)? Disney channel movies weren't always sinking as low as Zapped, there were some very memorable ones from earlier times. I'm not trying to sound old or anything, but television today is seriously degrading if people seriously want to watch this. -
PopcornSugar3313 July 2014I wasn't expecting much from this since the trailer and commercials didn't look very good but I sure wasn't expecting something THIS bad. The whole movie is wrapped around in a cheesy feminism bubble with it's "OMG I WILL MAKE BOYS ACT LIKE GENTLEMEN BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY ANNOY ME." plot and that's not even the worst part. The acting is simply atrocious from everyone. Chanelle Peloso who plays Rachel is one of the most annoying characters put in a DCOM and her voice is almost ear-piercing.
Spencer Boldman plays the cheesy type-cast "good looking guy" who's only job is to make 12 year old girls and boys get excited when he's on screen. He has the expression and depth of a wooden slate. Zendaya is not a good actress and Disney needs to stop trying to make her into something. Overall, this movie was stupid, unfunny, atrocious, and just all around poor in every regard - acting, script, jokes, and plot.
Zendaya and Spencer Boldman have absolutely no chemistry. We got the bitchy mean girl of the school and her airhead sidekick who obeys her. The way they stereotype boys save for the love interest is atrocious. Of course they have to have Zendaya dance. Acting, script, and the jokes suck. ONE OF THE WORST DCOM's EVER. Did not deserve the 5.7 million viewers it got. -
ivette_hartog19 October 2014Don't look at the 6.0 ranking this movie gets in IMDb. Just because a hundred of fans scored a 10 for this one, doesn't make it a good movie. After leaving Shake it Up, I thought that Zendaya would give a really good turn to her career, especially after watching her getting' silver in DWTS. Unfortunately, making this absurd collection of shots that some people calls movie was a terrible decision. "Zapped" has some ingredients that only the very bad comedies have: nasty and filthy boys, fart jokes, overacted queen bee, and I stop counting. I don't know what Zendaya was thinking, but maybe she was kinda cheated before signing the contract. She is talented, she's got everything, she's young and not desperate at all to make things like this. It was enough with three years of Shake it Up. I hope I'll never watch Zendaya in a Disney production for TV. Never again.
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pyroclitoral6 July 2018This movie.
Not only is it incredibly sexist and degrading toward men, but I think the worst part of all is the Jackson character. He's a cardboard-cut-out pretentious beanie-wearing hipster white boy who constantly talks about how "everyone is always on their phone" and "phones are bad" and, my personal favorite, "I don't even own a phone." In fact, I don't want to call him the worst part of the movie, if anything, he's the best part, because it's just so laughable. Especially the part where he's reading To Kill A Mockingbird in the park and acting like he's so knowledgeable and poetic for even reading such a book.
Don't watch this movie. Unless you want to laugh at it. -
RosanaBotafogo12 April 2023The movie is even nice, the script is convincing, we managed to feel sorry for the girl and hate the lack of respect from the rest of the family, but because every teen movie has stereotypes... From the middle to the end it lost a little bit of charm, very cliché...
Zoey Stevens (Zendaya Coleman), a skilled dancer and excellent student, struggles to adjust to her new life after her mother remarries. She will have to live with three messy and noisy half brothers, a scandalous stepfather and an out of control dog. The boys at school seem to be even worse, especially the misfits in the JV dance troupe, which she is forced to join. Everything seems to go wrong for the savvy teenager, until she discovers the dog training app on her phone that somehow controls all the boys. -
Objectification and misogyny are some of the buzz words that feminists use to describe men's attitude towards women. Feminists complain about objectification all the time, but at least women are venerated by men when they are done so; they become a valued ornament thus, in reality, there is no misogyny. The "objectified" males in this movie are compared to dogs; they are stupid, hyper, and slobs. Therefore the hatred towards men is very clear and, in this case, misandry and objectification are highly intertwined. As a man, I cannot help but to feel that this is the worldview through a women's eye when I watch this movie; a gynocentric lens of the world through a woman's passive aggressive hatred of men. And when they describe misogyny, it's actually a Freudian slip of their own opinion of the opposite gender.
The first quarter of this movie describes how the main character is hampered by careless, stupid guys, and socially defamed by other girls who somehow, and unrealistically, have social notoriety over her. The girl is concerned with superficial events and looks and... it's basically a teen movie for girls. But where this movie goes too far is how men are portrayed. It's no surprising that this a TV movie, since most males dropped television in favor for the internet and video games almost two decades ago, and the only people left watching television are women and girls. The rating demographics speak for itself. Anyone rating this more than a 5 is a radical feminist, or one in the making. The only thing good about this movie is the production value is fairly high for a TV movie and the people are attractive. -
It was so bad it was weird. Whoever wrote this movie had a really bad story plot. It was just really awful along with the acting - definitely don't waste your time and i only watched like a few minutes and it wasn't so great. Shaking barking and sitting like a dog um it was just awkward. i do not even know why they created this movie. I mean i don't hate on Zendaya or Boldman but this movie does not do much for them. It was bad writing in general - the plot was pretty dumb. Lets face it if you watch this movie you'll likely get the same reaction. My sister who just graduated high school and with a brother starting junior year also thought it was weird so if your age is around that range it is not worth seeing. Its just a joke like the Teen Beach Movie.
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This was my first movie of Zendaya, actually she is quite good. It is a fantasy movie about a girl whose mother get married to a man with a three boys and her problems begin when she tries to co-operate with new family. Especially being around with the men and her problem continues in her school. I enjoyed the movie. Some of the comedies were awesome. The movie was short an sweet.
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This movie was simply the most sexist, stereotypical and cliché movie of Disney I have ever watched. (Oh, and I watched a ton of Disney Channel Originals.) Me and my two BFF's were very bored while watching this. (The oldest was twelve, the youngest was eleven.) I was texting and the other two were talking about nail polish. And just when Zoey and the hot guy was kissing, I lifted my head, and guess what I saw, the most unrealistic kiss ever! Zendaya is a great actor, but not in this nutcase. The girl who played Taylor wasn't showing any emotion when Zoey's team won. She was just standing there. Just standing. I was shocked. If Walt Disney was alive, he would literally reject the film. But, whoever runs this place now, probably wasn't even caring about what they do here. At least the other movies weren't as SEXIST and STUPID as this. Zendaya was clearly NOT happy about this project, and the other actors just wanted to finish it as fast as possible. Oh, and only one person in our school disliked the movie because She was the only one who tried to watch it. This movie is like a cringe video LeafyIsHere reviews, and I'm pretty sure someone will review this someday and kill their selves over THE CRINGE of this. The only good part, Zendaya was in it.
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claytoncarmichael15 August 2015this movie is so sexist it call boys dogs and stupid and it say boys ruined everything this is a the worst movie ever and I'm so surprise that Disney make this as a male is so offend of this movie this a bad movie this movie is a flop i hate this movie this movie should be ban forever they shouldn't be so sexist this is a low for Disney . i think no one should watch it this is such a bad movie and the acting is bad zendaya was good but everyone else was bad and the plot was bad an app that control boys but not girls also really Disney that even more sexist the app should had control everyone this movie was thee most sexist movie ever i hate this movie you should not watch this movie ever
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olisdbart19 February 2022This is one of the most modern day sexist movies I've ever watched. I mean, the plot is litterally a girl controlling boys through a mutated dog obediance app because boys are supposedly more immature and barbaric. This apart from the million cliches and badly written dialogue.
If you enjoyed the movie, good for you! Don't let this review stop you from doing so. But I personally hated it.