Film You have to be kidding me.
This is a review of the 2011 film.
Ugh. I am so sick and tired of movies just depicting the Internet as nothing but a place filled with evil stalkers...and this film is no exception. Without getting into too much, yes, the Internet is a platform where pretty much anybody can say anything and get away with it, but that can be both a good and a bad thing. This movie just shows the bad and never the good. And it makes it feel really preachy, like it was written by some old guy who thinks that the Internet is some new fangled gadget that the kiddos use nowadays. The only good thing that I can say about Cyberbully's representation of the Internet is that they do mention blocking users (which works most of the time). And oh, yeah, right, the solution to cyberbullying is to monitor every computer in the world. What the heck? That's like the plot of a dystopian future story! And they're suggesting it as a plausible solution?
Other than that...Well, the protagonist does nothing but whine, which causes the film to be absolutely filled to the brim with Narm, which just further taints what this movie wants to convey. Come to think of it, the lead's only real personality trait is crying. And also acting Too Dumb to Live at some points (like when her account gets hacked). Also the part where she can't get the cap off is extremely overacted. Like, way too overacted. So overall this movie is pretty dumb and I wouldn't recommend taking it seriously. I'm not saying that cyber-bullying is okay, I'm just saying that this movie is incredibly one-sided.
Film Really bad... But in all the fun ways
Cyberbully... Everything about it is just bad. First you have this premise, it's yet another ABC Family "Ripped From The Headlines" drama that the network likes to make because they think it makes them seem "up on the issues facing today's teens!". (but like with The Secret Life Of The American Teenager, they came a few years too late) Whoever wrote the script probably didn't have any idea on how the internet and social networking sites work, furthermore, they didn't seem to have any idea on how teenagers today talk and act. (this is particularly obvious when characters use terms like "bling" and "the clap", the former being outdated by a few years and the latter by even longer) The characters are pretty bland, for the most part, and the acting isn't exactly the best in the business. Said acting isn't horrible for the most part, but there are a lot of individual scenes that are either underacted or overacted. The main character comes off whiny and stupid, the "villain" (the closest thing the movie has to one) is just a generic bitch who doesn't do much except smile ALL THE DAMN TIME, and you also have the main character's best friend who never explains her motives for actions that are revealed later in the movie, leaving the viewers to make guesses. (the most logical guess is that she's a closet lesbian with a crush on her friend)
But with that said... This movie is REALLY fun to watch for all the Narm. There's one particularly glorious scene in which the main character tries to kill herself by overdosing on pills... Only to find she can't get the cap off. There's a reason that scene reached meme status, guys. The bad acting and writing makes it silly in a "fun to watch" way. It tries so hard to be this "realistic" teen drama that "today's teens can relate to", but the teens act nothing like teens and I get a lot of laughs out of the writers and actors struggling to be dramatic and "real". If you hate narmy teen dramas but enjoy watching bad movies, definitely give this one a view.
Film Problems could have been easily fixed
2011 film
All the problems could have been easily fixed in one simple way - show the real problem is when high schoolers use cyber bullying as a way to escalate harassment of one particular student. This answers the common rebuttal of 'just don't use social media/look at that website' - if it's not an anonymous site and a high school community are using it, it is not longer easy to ignore because the abuse will follow you around the next day since everyone else DOES use the site. This removes the option of ignoring it, since most students want to know what their tormentors are falsely accusing them of or are going to use against them at school.
The theme is also fairly obvious in the first few moments, making the whole experience very Anvicilious.
The Maisie Williams drama comes much closer to getting the message right while maintaining the sense that there will be consequences for online activity at the end.