Greetings,
As you may know, whenever I see a movie at the theater, I immediately do a review of it here. Well, I don't think I've ever done this with a TV movie, until now. I'm going to be fairly brief today, but I just had to say something about this. This being The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story, courtesy of the good people at Lifetime.
In my opinion, 'true stories turned into movies from Lifetime' tend to be hit or miss with me and probably a lot of people. And I mean that from the perspective of what the truth actually is, as well as the quality of what they're putting out there. Let's talk about the artistic end of this first, particularly the acting. It wasn't terrible. In something of an homage to the show, I think they may have gotten actual teenagers to play the teenagers. The good old days. I could be wrong about that. Whether or not, though, they were pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised by all of them.
Now let's discuss how true this true story really was. Well, they did use the term "unauthorized" which can let you get away with a lot of stuff. However, it was based on the book that Dustin Diamond wrote, so much of it was from his point of view. He even got to do the Zack Morris-esque fourth wall breaking and time out/time in thing. Factor that in, as well as the seemingly acrimonious relationship he appears to have with his former co-stars, I kind of expected it to be more scandalous where they were concerned. It really wasn't. Actually, if anyone was made to look like a non-angel, it was Dustin Diamond himself. I mean, sure, he told about how he wasn't exactly treated well by a lot of people, and that seems plausible, but he shared his own mistakes, too. Everything else with everyone else just seemed like typical teenager stuff, though they were famous teenagers. Still, sometimes that doesn't matter. So, yeah, I don't exactly know how accurate these stories were, but if the weren't, no one is coming off looking all that bad. At least, as far as I could tell. Yeah, let's just say I tried to give this thing my full attention.
In short, this movie . . . exists. I watched until the end, though I may have drifted a couple of times, as I mentioned. And again, the acting was alright. And since this is a cable network movie, I feel as though they may rerun it a few more times. If they do, I say give it a watch. Especially if you lived through it the first time. Ah, nostalgia.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
