Zoey 102 (2023) Movie Review

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I had a pretty awesome weekend, with yesterday being my birthday and all. Over the weekend I was at a friend's place and we spent the whole day Saturday at various thrift stores where I got some great VHS tapes and a couple of awesome DVDs. And lots of food! We also watched a couple of movies while I was there. We rewatched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always on Saturday night and it was just as good the second time. On Friday night though, we watched Zoey 102, which is the continuation/reunion movie for Zoey 101, which aired on Nickelodeon (in the U.S.) and Family Channel (in Canada) from 2005 to 2008. Which is what I'm here to talk about today. There will be some minor spoilers since the movie has been out since July. So let's get into it.

 I really enjoyed this movie. One of the problems alot of revival movies and shows of older TV shows that have teenage casts, is that they often forget that the audience of the original show has aged up from where they were when the show was originally on the air and so they try to keep the movie or show as close to the original as possible and end up repeating what the original show did. Other times they stray so far away from the original show that it no longer resembles what the original was. Zoey 102 balances that extremely well.

While Zoey 101 was set at Pacific Coast Academy, a fictional private boarding school, Zoey 102 doesn't go back to PCA until almost the end of the movie, where it's not even a school anymore. Instead, everyone is scattered around doing different things. For example Zoey (Jamie Lynn Spears) is a producer for a reality show, and Stacey Dillsen (Abby Wilde) is the host of a murder podcast. They all reunite for the wedding of Logan Reese (Matthew Underwood) and Quinn Pensky (Erin Sanders). Naturally Zoey broke up with Chase Matthews (Sean Flynn) during their Hawaii trip that Zoey mentioned in the series finale of Zoey 101, because you can't have the main couple you've been rooting for since 2005, have a happily ever after at the beginning of your movie or revival series. The exception being Cory and Topanga from Boy Meets World and Eric and Donna from That '70s Show. The usual hijinks ensues and it's Zoey 101: The Movie. It's just everyone is older.

That's one of the things I liked about this movie, it knew what it was and what it wanted to be and didn't try to be anything more than that. It wasn't trying to change the world and it wasn't trying to win people over. It was just about us seeing these characters together again and seeing what they're like as adults.

Zoey and Chase worked incredibly well together. One of the things about the show not giving them an insta-relationship is that you saw them grow up together and genuinely become best friends before they ever started dating. And even after having not seen each other in about 15 years, their chemistry was even better than it was in the original show. The whole movie my friend and I kept saying, "they're perfect for each other" and she and I kept hoping they'd get back together. Even at their worst moment in the movie, Zoey and Chase worked together to make Logan and Quinn's wedding get back on track

The only problem I have with the movie is that Michael was not in it enough. Michael Barrett (Christopher Massey) was one of my favourite characters on Zoey 101 and his and Chase's friendship was legendary, but the movie was so focused on Logan and Quinn and Zoey and Chase that Michael kinda got the shaft. It also sucks that Zoey's brother, Dustin, didn't show up. Paul Butcher, the actor who played him, has had a pretty decent career both before and after Zoey, but he hasn't done anything since 2016, so I don't even know if he was available or if he even wanted to come back.

I watched Zoey 101 when it was originally airing on Family Channel back in the late 2000s. I was 18 and still in high school when the show started. However, I didn't start watching it until sometime during season 3 when Family Channel did a marathon of season 3 episodes during the summer of 2007, just before I started college. And I watched it until the series ended, and I also somehow managed to catch up on the first two seasons because Family Channel kept airing the show in reruns until 2012. We still had a VCR set up in the basement, so I'd tape the episodes and watch them on my TV/VCR combo set in my bedroom. I also got the first two seasons on DVD, but I got rid of them after I watched them and I haven't seen the show since. But, I was still excited when I heard that the movie was coming out. Especially because there'd been rumours about a Zoey reunion since 2015 when they did a 10th anniversary short starring Michael and Chase. 

Overall, this was a good movie. It was fun seeing this group of characters again after fifteen years. I didn't have any expectations for it, other than it feel like Zoey 101. And it was. Zoey, Quinn, Stacey, Mark, Chase, Michael and Logan all felt like those characters, but as adults. If you're a fan of Zoey 101 you'll enjoy Zoey 102. If you're not, you might still enjoy it, you just won't get as much out of it when certain things from the show pop in, like Chase running into poles or support beams whenever he's walking around and he sees Zoey. He did that ALOT on the show. Particularly the first episode and the series finale.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow for this week's comic book review, where I'll be reviewing Detective Comics #649, which is the third and final part of the storyline that introduced Stephanie Brown into the Batman mythos. I'll also have my review of Home Alone 3 up either on Thursday or on Friday, depending on when I end up watching the movie. I also got Sir Patrick Stewart's new autobiography, Making It So, and I started reading it before bed last night, so I'll be back to talk about that at some point too. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.