2006 saw the arrival of a film that was so earth-shatteringly witty and drenched in caustic satire and sex appeal that it shook the very foundation of teen comedy. That film, of course, I have yet to see. Instead, I bring you John Tucker Must Die, a half-assed attempt at teen comedy that likely pleased the “he’s so cute” crowd and didn’t do much else. Luckily for you, the general public to which I bare my soul, I take on the tasks many other casual reviewers don’t want to take on and I expose myself to the 89-minute fiasco known as John Tucker Must Die. And why do I do this? So you don’t have to.
John Tucker Must Die, I must admit, is not all bad. But it is mostly bad. Directed by Betty Thomas (Howard Stern’s Private Parts, I Spy, Doctor Doolittle), the film is essentially a teen comedy that sort of tries to be a satire and then sort of tries to not be a satire. Hopefully I made that clear enough. The film seems to flirt with the idea of identifying and then belittling various high school cliques, only to abandon that idea whenever something deemed funnier comes along and to allow the characters to forget their previous satirical incarnations to attempt comedy. The goth kids, for example, are used as window dressing and lampooned for simply sitting there and looking unimpressed. That was funny, but that sort of class comedy is left behind when cake-throwing or beer-tossing gags are deemed better. The problem with this is that the set-up appears there for an effective high school comedy, but it’s left behind when all the normative foundations arrive.
John Tucker Must Die is based around the premise of getting even with the hottest guy in school, who is played here by someone that is apparently “hot” by the standards of today’s here-today-gone-tomorrow teen crowd. That someone is Jesse Metcalfe. Now, let’s all remember that John Tucker Must Die is supposed to take place in high school. Then, let’s remember that Jesse Metcalfe is, I kid you not, older than I am. For the record, I’m going to be turning 30 in a year and a half. Jesse Metcalfe is nearly there. Okay, okay, so he’s probably got an impressive resume and is the perfect guy to play the role of a high school heartthrob, right? Metcalfe’s acting credits include a stint on the soap Passions and a stint on the satire-soap Desperate Housewives. Oh, and he was in Smallville to two episodes as some cat named “McNulty.” I kid you not.
Okay, so John Tucker Must Die has established a nearly-30 guy to play the high school heartthrob. (Note to writers: maybe a better premise for the film would have been for the high school girls to realize that John Tucker was, in fact, some older guy with a wife and kids and then have the girls take out their revenge on him in other creative ways. Just a thought.) It turns out that John Tucker had been dating three different girls, but was so strategic in his multi-tasking that he wound up dating three different girls from three different groups so that the girls, who go to the same high school and have the same classes and are dating the most popular guy in school, would never realize that they were all dating the most popular guy in their school. What a failsafe plan!
The three different girls are represented by the head cheerleader, played by singer Ashanti (Coach Carter, The Muppets Wizard of Oz), the chronic overachiever, played by Arielle Kebbel (Dirty Deeds, American Pie Presents Band Camp), and the slutty vegan activist chick, played by Sophia Bush (Supercross, Stay Alive). The three girls, once they find out on one magically random day that they’ve been had by Tucker, decide to get even and they enlist the help of the new girl, Kate, played by Brittany Snow (The Pacifier, Murphy’s Dozen), to help get even with the guy. They hatch a series of plans, which Tucker avoids either by accident or by act of charm, until they decide that they should have Kate make Tucker fall in love with her and then yank the carpet out from under him. Ha ha.
John Tucker Must Die is an attempt at a teen revenge flick, essentially, in which everyone suddenly gets along at the end (sorry for the “spoiler”) and all things are resolved without a clue as to why or how they were resolved. But this is a teen comedy and the teens that see this film aren’t too likely to be much older than 15, so the demands aren’t exactly high. All that is typically required by this film is a few laughs, a cute male lead (in this case played by someone who is damn near 30), a quasi-edgy REAL love interest, and a gaggle of girls that somehow work together despite their differences. This film abandons its natural roots quite quickly and instead descends into a maddening array of “what the hell is going on?” moments, leaving in its wake a load of confusion and strange moments. The inexplicable last frame of the film, in which a strange parade of fat bald men drop some papers and bend over to show thong underwear, is just bizarre but supposedly HILARIOUS?! Go figure.
2/10
