Not only was my glamorous reviewer friend Jason kind enough to extend a press pass to me for an advance screening of 'John Tucker Must Die', but he was also delightful enough of an acquaintance to grant me a compliment.
"Ooo, fancy. What's up with the dress?" Jason queried, "You going to the prom or something?"
"In point of fact, I shall be attending the prom, on the arm of John Tucker," I snootily replied.
"You bitch! John Tucker is mine!" Jason screamed.
"Whores! Iâm the slutty one!" yelled the middle-aged, balding man in front of us in line.
"Lying is bad!" we all chorused. "Food fight!"
If you think this review is simply too incomprehensible for words, than I don't recommend seeing 'John Tucker' the movie either.
Whether it was Sophia Bush, fresh from her brief-marriage-to-Chad-Michael-Murray fame, being a slutty vegan activist or Ashanti, I liked her in 'Bride & Prejudice' but really not in the 'Muppets Wizard of Oz', being an aggressive head-cheerleader, OR Arielle Kebbel, Dean's wife from 'Gilmore Girls, anyone?, being an overachiever (and apparently Maxim's 2005 95th Hot 100)--this movie had many low points. Most of which stemmed from the casting of Brittany Snow, the precocious teenage daughter from 'American Dreams', as the female lead, Kate.
Notwithstanding the fact that her on-screen mom was played by Jenny McCarthy and thus she should be cut a little slack right from the beginning, Snow is just not that good of an actress. Or eye candy. Hell, her similarly TV-morphing-into-movies co-star from 'American Dreams', Vanessa Lengies, did a better job in 'Stick It'. At least when Lengies says, "They're not called gym-NICE-tics", I could believe her acting skills unlike Snow's, "I didn't have a pen."--in response to the sexy gardener from 'Desperate Housewives', (Jason Metcalfe), asking why she didn't call him after he spouted his phone number over the school's intercom system for her.
Admittedly, the first 20 minutes were not half bad. Quite intelligently funny, really, but I gave up almost all hope when the secondary male lead appeared singing Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles' song from '10 Things I Hate About You'--'I want you to want meâ--and even having Ledgerâs hair. The blatant rip off of this and the utilization of the song again at the end clinched the desperate nature of 'John Tucker Must Die' trying to be funny, trying to be a parody, trying to be good and failing. Like a whipped boy in a thong, I give this movie...squished balls, the gift that keeps on giving.
And yet...I will still go and see this movie...ALONE as no one I know will see it with me but whatever at least then I won't have anyone snickering while I squirm with glee.
Posted by: nuala on July 26, 2006 11:24 AMYeah, I remember thinking that dude looked so much like Heath Ledger, with or without the hair.
I'm regretting not getting one of those John Tucker wife-beaters they were handing out. Oh well.
Posted by: jason on July 26, 2006 05:01 PMI've already decided that I hate this movie, based entirely on watching the previews with the sound off.
Posted by: matt on July 27, 2006 10:01 AM