There’s not another genre out there that’s as tailor-made by Studio Execs than the teenage comedy. This might explain why they’re all the same: teenager sets out on a journey for sex, gets screwed a few times along the way (although not in the way that they hoping for) and finally realize that they should just had sex with their best friend. In this respect of plot, John Tucker Must Die is a nothing more than a really, and I mean really does attempt to break the mold; but everything else in the movie from its clichéd and stereotyped characters and an ending that you won’t care about exposes its true nature: John Tucker Must Die is just another teenage comedy.
John Tucker Must Die
2 Stars
It just came to me when I was sitting in the theatre. Our main character was having a heart-to-heart with her mother about boys, and I was enlightened as if it were a fact taught to me in U.S. History. John Tucker Must Die is a nothing more than a really, and I mean really mediocre movie. It’s not bad—in fact it can be down-right charming half the time. But the rest of the running time lacks anything that wants to make you stake out your seat until it all fades to black.
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Nobody likes being cheated on; not even when the cutest boy, like, ever is the one cheating on you. So the obvious way to get back is to try to embarrass him in front of, like, the entire school.
John Tucker Must Die chronicles this exact story, where the cutest boy in the 12th grade is film namesake John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe,) and his victims are the first ladies of their High School cliques- the lead Cheerleader, the new-age vegan and the smarty-pants that’s in every extra-curricular activity. John, God bless him, somehow managed to date all three of them at the same time; but after the girls find out and get the ol’ heave-ho from their newly-appointed Ex, they decide that he needs a dose of his own medicine.
So they hatch a plot to make John fall head over heels for social nobody Kate (Brittany Snow,) who has a fair share of doubt in the concept of love. Nothing else happens down the road that you can’t see happening—life lessons are learned and BFFs are made around every corner.
The film’s title promised what could have been an entertaining, black teenage comedy. Think about it, had the girls taken no mercy as the movie’s name suggests, it would have boosted the film’s value to anyone who doesn’t think the best movies ever are Mean Girls or The Notebook. They could have gone a lot further, and the idea of extreme revenge in a High School setting has potential, but the script just doesn’t take it there.
The film’s weakest spot is the character of John Tucker himself. Metcalfe does as decent of a job as is required for the genre, but we never get a very solid idea of who he is—a hotshot asshole in it for the ass or a sensitive boy that hides in his perfect physique and charm. He keeps switching masks depending on who’s opposite him in the scene, and we never get a final idea of what he is. This writer would have prefered it if he were a jerk-extroardinaire that was easier to hate than a guy who drowns puppies, but we can’t all get what we want.
But John Tucker Must Die is a movie about young love, and the filmmakers don’t botch the charm of Snow’s character or the sometimes successful humor. The genre is a weak spot, it makes sub-par stories fun just because everyone in the movie is having it.
John Tucker Must Die is just another teenage comedy. It won’t knock the pants off of you, and you really shouldn’t go see it. But if you somehow surf onto a channel showing it in the next few years on TV, it’d probably hold your attention. Like, I guess.