I Love You, Beth Cooper

After seeing a trailer that seemed to have promise I was rather surprised at how much this film lacked any laughs. This fault lies with the directing and editing. The actors seemed to give performances up to that of any other teen comedy, but the timing of the whole movie was off.....and in comedy, timing is everything! The fact that the story has little character set-up and uses every cliché stolen from numerous comedies before it does not help the ill paced scenes.

I managed to leave the theater without requesting my money back, but you know when people in the audience are having full conversations during a film, it is hardly holding anyone's attention.

Pass at the B.O. and only rent it on DVD if you have an unlimited plan and are running out of things to see.

This is my first review but I'm not going to say everyone will agree with what I have to say but what I can say is I loved the movie, this movie had all the signs that he's going to get the girl blah blah blah which I loved and I enjoyed it but this movie shows you a ending can really go from a 7/10 to a 5/10. Ya that's 0 to 100 real quick! The ending really made me not like this. It sucks to say that because watching it all the way thru just to watch that ending it will make you laugh, cry and even blush and root for the guy but just to piss you off in the end so ya loved the movie all the way thru I thought the actors and actresses were good it was just the ending that had me never wanting to watch it again. If we are single at our 10 years I'm going to marry you! He didn't get the girl sadly.

'I Love You Beth Cooper' is a teen comedy that gently pushes a few boundaries but doesn't really do anything new. It is based on the book of the same name by Larry Doyle. Unlike the book though, this film never really captures the same atmosphere and leaves you wanting more from the characters. Unfortunately, due to some poor timing many of the jokes fall flat leaving the film to stutter instead of flow.

The film does pick up pace midway through the 2nd act however ultimately there isn't anything overly likable about the geek. A touch of reality may have made his character more believable but it seems the director prefers sight gags over substance. Some of the locations work well to build the atmosphere, but the dialog just feels too cheesy and forced to make you feel comfortable enough to just go with the story.

Hayden Panettiere is really the only reason you would watch this. It isn't hard to see why Denis would fall in love with her Beth - I kept thinking I'd probably do the same if I went to her school. I found her character to be very credible and I enjoyed every scene she was in.

If you like Beauty and the Geek and you're a fan of Hayden, this is worth watching. More music, faster - wittier dialog and more character development would have improved this ten fold.

Come on, this is a high school comedy the way they used to do them back in the '80s! This is not John Hughes territory, as you might be led to believe upon seeing "Home Alone" director Chris Columbus at the helm. No, this is another breed of '80s comedy. This is more "Three O'Clock High" than "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," which is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on your taste. The humor here is broad and unsophisticated, for the most part, but fits with the brisk pacing and sunny tone of the film. This movie invites you to have a good time along with the cast. It throws you in the middle of a heightened reality/unlikely scenario (most geeks do not suddenly grow a pair and profess their love for the hottest girl in school during their valedictorian speech) and beckons you to simply enjoy the ride. While the films of John Hughes endeavor to depict a realistic panoramic view into the teenage mind, taking stereotypes and turning them inside out, this film, and its grandaddy "Three O'Clock High" do not carry such aspirations. They are fantasy, pure and true, and are all about having a good time. If the characters are two dimensional, so what? If the plot is threadbare, so what? Character development and story arc are not reasons to see a movie like "I Love You Beth Cooper." This is just a classic homespun yarn, taking place in Anywhere, USA, about a geek who outsmarts a bully and gets the girl. If you expected more, you're going to be disappointed. This is the kind of movie that could work just as well as a cartoon. It's a zippy, predictable ride from point A to point B, but the journey is not lacking in entertainment value. If you, like me, are a fan of "Three O'Clock High" and on many-a-day would watch it over "Bueller," then you're in for a treat because this is practically a remake albeit with the addition of a love interest.

By my recollection this is only the second high school wide release film of the year (the other being the equally unoriginal 17 Again). Yet, despite it not being worn thin this year, the high school genre needs major help. It's a time of life that is of significance to everyone. Obviously, for some it is much more prominent than for some others. But at that time, the world seems magnified as never before. Why has no film been able to even come close to capturing that sentiment? Of course there are some that are brilliant The Last Picture Show, Dead Poet's Society, than there's ones that don't really have all that much to do with high school like Rushmore, Boyz N' the Hood, and oldies like Rebel Without A Cause and a huge collection from the 1980's with Say Anything being the strongest of the bunch, but over the course of cinematic history this genre, more than any other, has been completely butchered. The last ten years has been the worst. The main problem is that every high school film has it in their head that there is this hierarchy that simply does not exist. I don't know if it ever did, but in my life and my frequent conversations with others on the topic it has been confirmed that it doesn't. Perhaps, in the 1980's there was such division. There were these groups of nerds, jocks, losers, weirdos and, well, the "it" girls. Maybe these groups collided in the ways we still see in films, you know, swirlies, and locking freshman in lockers, and wedgies too. Jocks are always dumb. Always. Nerds are always picked on and they never ever get the girl. Ask Duckie. "It" girls are vicious, hate everyone, especially their parents and their best friend, they usually have a really bad life and that's why they hate everyone and all they want is someone to listen to them. Losers are stupid too, like jocks. Pretty much you're either stupid or a nerd getting your ass kicked. Thing is, high school is nothing like that. Valedictorians are not always nerds. They don't even always give speeches at graduation commencement – I know, what about that mandatory valedictorian speech scene. Jocks can be smart. Yes, a human can exist that is both athletic and academic. I've seen it myself. I know, they might have to reinvent the whole formula. Nerds sometimes drink alcohol other than on the last day of high school. Yeah, I know, I don't know how that required "nerdy kid" cutting loose scene is going to happen then either. Sure, they're are groups in high school. Some kids you're friends with and others you're not. Sure some kids are smart and some are good at sports but it seldomly if ever defines their entire being. Thing is, adolescents are not one-dimensional people that resemble how they're represented in the twenty year formula that Hollywood has been using, subbing in new role players as they age. The fact that nothing that happens in I Love You, Beth Cooper would ever happen in real life isn't that big of a deal if not for the fact that a good movie about the topic deserves to be made. One not at a boarding school, one that doesn't involve drug addiction, one that doesn't involve being in a gang – one that is just a simple story of what it is really like at that moment when life is changing for everyone you know. That decisions that you're too young to be making end up dictating the years of your life that you haven't really even thought out. Where's that film? It could still be funny. It could still have a beautiful actress on the poster. It would certainly make more money that I Love You, Beth Cooper will. That film doesn't exist during any moment of Beth Cooper. Nor does a plot-line you haven't seen, a character you ever met in real life nor one you haven't met in film, an original line of dialogue, or anything than justifies its existence as cinema.

E @ A Reel Perspective