John Tucker Must Die (2006)

Directed by: Betty Thomas
Starring: Brittany Snow, Jesse Metcalfe

Yep. It’s a teen movie. A bunch of beautiful teens slink around a beautiful high school trying to get laid while ostensibly discovering their true feelings, identities, and/or sexual preferences. Chances are high that this beautiful high school is somewhere in beautiful California. Probably L.A. People’s beautiful high school reputations are at beautiful stake as they plot and scheme to fuck each other or fuck each other over on their collective quest to become a beautiful legend or something among a beautiful crowd of peers notorious for not remembering or caring about any of that beautiful fucking crap.

I’m trying very hard not to sound jaded here; I don’t have the enthusiasm. John Tucker Must Die (JTMD if you’re sassy) simply doesn’t achieve anything new. The movie is about an invisible beautiful girl who moves from town to town. She and Jenny McCarthy have settled in some upscale hamlet in beautiful California, where she finds herself struggling to fit in. Meanwhile, the most popular kid in school is reveling in his ability to play the field and date several beautiful girls at once. Our invisible beautiful heroine is not part of this fun. When it’s revealed that he ain’t nuthin’ but a beautiful playa, the estranged ex-girlfriends involve our heroine in a plot to destroy his beautiful reputation because they are shallow and also incapable of getting over him. Everything culminates not in a school dance but with a party that looks like a school dance. This shows us that yes, this teen movie is different than the rest of them and is complicated and has a lot of depth to it. For starters, did you know they all drink alcohol?

While the overall plot has nothing going for it really, I will say one thing about this film that I found to be really good. JTMD is totally an actor’s movie. And JTMD’s cast had a lot of fun making this movie. This is most obvious in a frenetic scene where it is revealed that main character Kate (Brittany Snow) hasn’t really kissed anyone before, at least not well. She and Beth (Sophia Bush) are in John Tucker’s Jeep discussing how to deal with this sudden change in the plan to ruin him because he’s going to drive Kate home and likely give her a good night kiss which will, like, most definitely ruin the whole thing. Beth is the loose one of the group and she lays on a seduction so convincing to Kate that as she and John are driving home later you can see it in her face: she is clearly turned on. The best part is that John has no idea and starts talking to her about music and stuff. It’s a wonderful little blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that I wish appeared more in an otherwise bland teen movie.

C+