1987's Can't Buy Me Love gets a hip-hop makeover in Love Don't Cost A Thing, with Drumline's Nick Cannon in the Patrick Dempsey role and the delicious Christina Milian filling in for Amanda Peterson. Hipper and smarter than the original, Love Don't Cost A Thing is a humor-laden commentary on the perils of popularity and the harshness one must endure at the low-end of the high-school hierarchy.

       In this modern update, the disturbing angle of the original, in which Dempsey offers Peterson $1,000 to be his girlfriend for a month, is softened a bit to make the arrangement seem less smarmy. Here, Milian wrecks her mother's car and Cannon offers to pay for the repairs if Milian pretends to be his girlfriend for two weeks. Whereas the premise of the original film bordered on teenage prostitution, the arrangement here seems more like a business deal to increase Cannon's social standing. It's a set-up that seems ridiculous, given that Milian comes from a background of wealth and would surely have access to the $1500 necessary to repair the car, but the two have to be brought together somehow and this premise is as good as any, I suppose.

       I enjoyed Cannon's performance in Drumline and I think he's a star on the verge of breaking through. Here, though, he's a bit too goofy and takes his transformation from geek to chic a bit too over the top. Cannon has a nice sense of comic timing and he pulls off some truly funny geek moments, including a bit in which he uses an exercise tape to teach himself some dance moves. Milian does nice work, but her character proves problematic. I never quite understood why she was willing to risk her popularity for Cannon and her 180-degree turn in attitude is abrupt and unconvincing. We learn that she has aspirations other than being the most popular girl in school, but none of it explains why she turns on her own friends so suddenly. Despite unsatisfying character development, Milian is an absolutely engaging screen presence. Steve Harvey gets my vote as the film's scene stealer in a side-splitting turn as Cannon's father, a man who still fancies himself a playa and whose idea of legacy is the passing down of a 'hope chest' full of…..well, you'll just have to see the film to fully appreciate the genius of Harvey's father/son chats.

       Love Don't Cost A Thing is available on DVD in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 Dolby Digital. Extras are few, consisting of deleted scenes and an alternate ending that I thought wrapped things up in a more satisfying way; a brief making-of featurette that offers little in the way of anything interesting; a pair of music videos featuring music from the soundtrack, and the original trailer.

       Love Don't Cost A Thing is a pleasant film that wraps up issues of popularity, friendship, moral values, self-confidence, and self-worth in hip-hop packaging. While it makes some interesting and, at times, poignant points about the social order of teens, the message often gets lost under all the silliness.