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Parents' Guide to

So Undercover

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Miley Cyrus stars in this forgettable dud of a campus comedy

Movie PG-13 2013 94 minutes
So Undercover Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 10+

Based on 3 parent reviews

fveliz97
fveliz97 Adult
April 18, 2020
age 18+

i def wouldnt show this to kids ???

It is miley cyrus so it naturally pulls kids in but the language in this is definitelly not for kids?? It feels like they meant to target late teens but they failed. This is just a bad movie folks. Dont let your kids watch this there is literally a whole scene where miley and the the dude protagonist re enact BDSM. Super not appropriate I cant believe I come online to see people talking about showing this to kids like Anyway, it is just a bad movie all around. Bad directing. Bad dialogue. Bad acting. Bad writing. Bad. None of it makes sense. Super bootleg Miss Congeniality.
Elle887
Elle887 Adult
July 13, 2020
age 10+

So bad

So I wouldn’t recommend this for kids at all frankly. Yes it has miley cyrus but it sucks. It has nothing on more developed later soriety media, like scream queens, where the girls have good word use, etc. This is like so bad; it hates on girly things as shallow and is just frankly bad. I had to stop watching to write this to save myself ptsd.
See all 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Molly (Miley Cyrus) is a mature teen who works with her ex-cop dad (Mike O'Malley) as a successful private investigator specializing in adultery cases. Out of the blue, an FBI Agent (Jeremy Piven) recruits her to pose as a transferring sorority sister at a New Orleans college in order to cozy up to Alex (Lauren McKnight), a potential witness in an important Russian mafia investigation. Molly is supposed to convince Alex to turn over critical evidence, but first she has to convincingly play the part of a sorority girl -- a tough act made even more difficult when she starts falling for Nicholas (Joshua Bowman), who may or may not be involved in the case.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3 ):
Kids say (11 ):

So Undercover hinges on the very limited acting talents of Cyrus, who has proven once again (as with LOL) that she's not ready or able to carry a movie. Scottish director Tom Vaughan has made four very different movies -- from the weepy sick-kid drama Extreme Measures to the outlandish romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas -- and So Undercover had the potential of living up to his entertaining debut feature, Starter for 10, which also followed an eccentric group of college kids. But that campus comedy starred a young James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dominic Cooper and Alice Eve.

It's not that Cyrus is the only weak link in the story: the plot is predictable, the characterizations either flat or completely unbelievable (one co-ed is a chemistry major but doesn't know the definition of some basic words), and even the "twist" can be deciphered halfway through the movie. Piven and O'Malley are wasted in the film, so it's no real loss that they phone in their performances. Bowman, who stars on ABC's primetime soap Revenge, is handsome enough, but the romance between he and Cyrus is forced. The only redeeming aspect of the movie is the tender and close relationship between Molly and her father -- but that gets overwhelmed by the SO, like, ridiculous depiction of college life.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the way Molly pretends to be dumb in order to fit in with her sorority. What does she discover about her sorority sisters? Are they as airheadish as they seem at first?

  • Miley Cyrus has yet to make a movie as big as The Last Song, which came out in 2010; do you think she will make an acting comeback?

  • There are a lot of movies about young agents and spies. How does this one compare?

  • What do you think of the movie's depiction of college life? What stereotypes does it promote?

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