O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,

That notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,

Of what validity and pitch so'er,

But falls into abatement and low price

Even in a minute.

(I.i.9-14)

-excerpted from William Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night”

To be completely honest, I needed a cinematic High School-set adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night like I needed someone to put an electric drill to my head and pull the trigger. One starring “What I Like About You” and “What a Girl Wants” star Amanda Bynes is probably even lower on things I would care to see, the lovely young actress not exactly high on my list of favorites at the moment.

Not that this sort of thing hasn’t worked before. “O,” a basketball-fueled remake of Othello set in a private school, and “10 Things I Hate About You,” an updating of The Taming of the Shrew that brought Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger their initial fame, both worked out pretty well. Then there are non-Shakespearean remakes like “Mean Girls” (based on Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes) and “Clueless” (inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma), secondary school comedies so entertaining and fun they should almost be illegal.

But there is something about Andy Fickman’s “She’s the Man” that just made me queasy. From the presence of Bynes, to the fact the director’s only other major credit was a television movie called “Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical,” to the abysmal trailers and commercials promoting the movie, my surface-level gut feelings weren’t exactly positive to say the least. If anything, I even tried to find a way to avoid the press screening altogether, thinking of every possible excuse for my editor to let me know it would be alright to stay home and not worry about the thing.

For all my trepidation, a weird thing happened as I watched the movie. Slowly, even craftily, the silly darn thing began to sneak up on me. As it rolled itself out, started to play its hand, darn it all if “She’s the Man” isn’t entertaining in an exuberant let’s-put-on-a-show-and-have-a-good-time sort of way. It’s breezily intoxicating, a good-natured riff on a tried and true classic brought to fruition with verve and vitality that’s far more wonderful than it really has any right to be.

Not that “She’s the Man” proves to be a classic. For all its charm it’s too juvenile and hackneyed to come anywhere near that. Besides, as impressed with Bynes as I came to be by the time the end credits rolled, the only thing less believable than the bubbly brunette masquerading as a boy is watching this same brunette trying to pass herself off as an all-star soccer player. A final game pitting rival schools against one another is as tough a slog as there is in film, a ponderous avalanche of cliché and tedium nearly guaranteed to make a viewer roll their eyes in disbelief.

The storyline is pure High School Comedy 101, even without the added Shakespearean influence. Viola (Bynes) discovers her school, Cornwall High, has cut the girls soccer program to save money. When her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) decides to sneak away to London the upset senior decides to pretend to be him at rival high school (he got expelled from hers) Illyria Academy to join the boys team. Once she helps them whip up on her old school, Viola will reveal her charade and show everyone how great a player she really is.

Complications ensue when she meets her new roommate Duke Orsino (Channing Tatum) and realizes there’s more to being a boy than just being able to hock up some spittle and talk about girls like they’re pieces of meat. Soon she’s, as a he, helping him, who’s a hottie, try to romance the school’s blonde beauty Olivia (Laura Ramsey) who, unknown to Viola, has a thing for her alter ego Sebastian. Throw in Illyria’s nebbish headmaster Principal Gold (David Cross), the school’s uncompromising Coach Dinklage (Vinnie Jones) and Sebastian’s materialistic girly-girl girlfriend Monique (Alex Brekenridge) and Viola might have bitten off far more than she’s capable of chewing.

Oh, yes, she’s also falling in love with Duke.

Truth be told, “She’s the Man” shouldn’t be as much fun as it is. Bynes alternates from being spectacular to awful, while Fickman’s direction wavers hesitantly both at the start and the finish. But it is that middle section that gives the picture its effervescent kick, the actress and her costars coming alive like gangbusters to deliver a cross-dressing comedy of love, loss and misdirection that’s a perfectly pleasant mid-afternoon diversion from a person’s daily cares. It’s sexy, funny and even a little bit moving, all things I’d never have expected in a million years but sure won't complain about now that I’m here writing my thoughts down.

“If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.” That’s another quote from Twelfth Night, one that fits this better-than-a-sitcom adaptation almost like a glove. The food for love comes, at times, from odd places, directions we may not see coming even when they’re right in front of a our very noses. We need to appreciate them all the same, even with their flaws and misbegotten tastes that don’t necessarily completely satisfy the pallet. Because they still hold wonders, flavors and aromas that stir the mind and lift the spirit making us all dream of lives and loves we’ve met along our own merry way.

One more for you: “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” For that, ladies and gentlemen, I give you “She’s the Man.”