Really Surprised!

Good start, but then it gets ruined

An action-packed slog

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

"A girl, sent by her parents to live with her two eccentric aunts and attend a new high school, finds out on her sixteenth birthday that she is a witch". This premise sets up Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) to be a blend of "Bewitched" and "Mean Girls".This teen movie belongs to the "high-school-queen-bee-gets-her-comeuppance" sub-genre of which there are endless examples. Apparently there is a huge viewing demographic who on some basic level repeatedly get off erotically or emotionally on this humiliation dynamic. The friendship and coming-of-age elements are almost incidental to the story.More central for your thinking viewer are the moral dilemma and ethical considerations raised by the story. Sabrina competes with other girls in track and field events; winning several of them by using her powers to cheat. Little effort is made to show her in any sort of quandary over her decision to cheat. The story hedges a bit on this issue, as her magic is mostly used in response to unwarranted attacks by her rival; but in several of the track & field events her cheating makes losers out of all the other participants and no attempt is made at rationalization or justification.The problem with casting someone like Melissa Joan Hart as your good girl love interest is the absence of even a hint of physical sizzle. Which means that to stay remotely credible with viewers, the bad girl she plays off has to be several erotic levels below Megan Fox; hence Tori Spelling lookalike Lalainia Lindbjerg as Katy Lemore (apparently a play on L'Amore). And Hart's rival Libby in the 1996-2003 series would be played by the even less sizzling Jenna Leigh Green. Which makes their inevitable comeuppances almost sterile. And since Katy does not rank especially high on the queen bee badness scale Sabrina's extreme revenge is way out of proportion. To appreciate the missed opportunity just check out Samantha's inspired abuse of rival Sheila Sommers (played by gorgeous Nancy Kovack) in several episodes of "Bewitched".But the producers should get some credit for a glammed up Katy in the "Zapped" (1982) inspired final comeuppance scene. Although Sabina has tortured Katy throughout the movie she saves the most extreme for the end, reducing her rival to a disheveled and whimpering wreck. With this "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" sets a new standard in teen movie queen bee degradation, if that is your idea of a turn on or a good time. Going any further with this sort of thing would cross into "Carrie" territory and that is an entirely different genre.Sabina's bad boy hunk Seth is played by sleepy looking Ryan Reynolds, he is relatively harmless and almost cluelessly disengaged. Reynolds would play an almost identical character three years later in "Dick". "Dead Like Me's" Daisy - Laura Harris - plays one of Katy's friends and has a lot of what the main actresses are missing.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I myself grew up watching the Sabrina the Teenage Witch episodes. If you are a big fan of Melissa Joan Hart or love the series then you will definitely love this movie. The movie takes place at the beginning when Sabrina just discovers that she is a witch. It is very interesting to see how she copes with it and what she goes through. However not all of the main characters in the show make it to the movie since the movie was created first. The voice of Salem you can also tell is off. But, it is a great started movie to the series. I loved watching it. If you like Sabrina, then watch this movie. It will amaze you. It is magical.

I think the previous comments can be explained by some clarification. Sabrina, the Teenage Witch the movie came first. Given the popularity of the movie, a TV show spawned off of it (much the same as what happened with Buffy, the movie was first) and the cast changes and other changes were made. I liked the series, but it's important to note that since Sabrina was already popular by that point because of the movie, the series had the opportunity to be much more polished and complete. Taken with that in mind, it's much easier to enjoy the movie as the delightful first romp through the Sabrina world that it is, rather than comparing to the much-improved later works.

I don't know why everyone's being so hard on this movie. No it's not like the TV series, but come on, this was made BEFORE the TV series as a movie all on its own, of course it's different. Instead of endlessly comparing it to the TV show and complaining, why not try letting it stand on it's own?I actually really like this movie, so much so that I recently bought it on DVD. I thought it was really cute. It doesn't try to be anything it's not. It's simple, but for me that worked. For me the cast meshed very well together. Back when this movie was made Melissa Joan Hart was young enough to be able to pull off playing a TEENAGE witch and she did a really good job. Melissa Joan Hart was so sweet in this film, she was cute but not too much, and her acting was just fine. I really enjoyed Michelle Beaudoin as Marnie, Sabrina's best friend. Beaudoin had great chemsitry with Hart and it was very easy to believe their friendship, which felt very natural. I also thought Lalainia Lindbjerg was super as the malicious Queen Bee character Katie and Ryan Reynolds was great as hunky Seth, while Tobias Mehler was perfect as Harvey. My only complaint is that I found Sherry Miller and Charlene Fernetz really bland and uninteresting as the aunts. They weren't so bad but I'm not that keen on them either.The storyline was good enough...Sabrina Saywer is relatively new in River Dale. She has a crush on Seth, a senior and the hottest guy in school. But Seth is invovled with Queen Bee Katie, however when Katie breaks up with him Seth begins noticing Sabrina. When Sabrina uses her newly discovered magical powers to win a track competition, Seth asks her to the Spring Fling dance at school but by this time Sabrina's unsure if Seth really is the guy for her. All the while poor Harvey, who's liked Sabrina all along, has to wait to see if Sabrina will have a change of heart.Sabrina, The Teenage Witch plays very much like a chick flick aimed at young teens. It clearly was made on a low budget but it still (in my opinion) looked good and it's just a cute movie that's fun if you have some time on your hands. Try and watch it with an open mind, forget about the TV show while you do, and don#t judge this little bit of fluff too harshly. You might just enjoy it.