"You have to take it with a grain of salt," admonished my friend as we walked out of the theater as she beamed with the unreal joy that only a satisfying chick flick can bring. I, on the other hand, had spent the last two hours annoying the group of giggling 13-year-olds next to me with the light from my cell phone while I changed its settings back and forth. Don't worry though, I watched enough of the scenes to be able to review it pretty fairly.

Don't get me wrong-I'm as much of a chick-flick fan as the next person. In fact, I plan on taking "Romance in Film" next semester, so don't just dismiss this not-quite-positive review as the prejudice of a chick-flick hater. But come on! I know all about taking chick flicks with a grain of salt, but goddamn, "13 Going on 30" demands an entire barrel, which is about three million grains more than I have to spare.

"13 Going on 30" takes us back to 1987-a year most of us don't remember too clearly. But 1987 in this movie looks pretty much like the 1980s in any of the classic '80s films. Jenna (Christa Allen) is a dorky, unpopular 13-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to be in the cool crowd. Since that proves impossible after an embarrassing birthday fiasco when she is abandoned by everyone but her loyal (but equally dorky) friend Matt Flamhaff (Mark Ruffalo), she wishes that she were 30. And poof! A little bit of wishing dust later, she wakes up in Manhattan in 2004, exactly 30 years old. What's more, she's a gorgeous successful woman (Jennifer Garner) with a great job and a fabulous wardrobe in a posh Fifth Avenue apartment. She's finally cool and popular. The only hitch? She has absolutely no idea how she got there.

In short, "13 Going on 30" was pretty much a remake of the Tom Hanks classic "Big"-a shabby, degrading remake. So what about it disgusted me so much? It wasn't just its predictability ... I could already tell you how it was going to end less than 10 minutes into the movie. But there are some great movies with predictable endings-pretty much every chick flick out there for that matter.

What really bothered me was the never-ending inconsistencies. In "Big," Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks) makes a wish, goes to bed and wakes up as an adult, with no time elapsed in between. In "13 Going on 30," Jenna wishes and wakes up as an adult, but it's 17 years later, which means that Jenna should have been the regular fish-out-of-water, but there's none of that in "13 Going on 30." Jenna isn't at all freaked out by cordless phones or high-speed internet, but she pretty much has a heart attack when her cell phone begins to ring, and she has no problems using a computer or dressing well enough to impress snotty New Yorkers. Yes I'm nitpicking, but I think it's fair when these impossibilities were thrown in my face every two minutes or less.

And there's Jennifer/Jenna, whose performance is so forced, over-the-top and, at times, wincingly awful, that I felt embarrassed for her. From what I hear, she's not that bad in "Alias," and she is gorgeous enough to add bonus points to a mediocre performance. But her acting job was about three grades below mediocre.

I have to admit, though, that there were a few good scenes. Not enough to make up for the two hours that I could have spent catching up on reading, but still a few. I had a great time watching Jenna make a fool out of herself at a hip New York City club when she asks the DJ to put on "Thriller" and re-enacts the music video in the middle of an empty dance floor. That is, until she somehow gets a roomful of the same snotty New Yorkers to gleefully join her. Then I just went back to being disgusted.

So I should probably get to the all-important recommendation around now ... but I think it's about as obvious as the ending of "13 Going on 30" was. I can think of a lot of better things to do with your two hours than making a trip to the movie theaters for "13 Going on 30."