John Tucker Must Die

You'd think that a movie called "John Tucker Must Die" will approach the parameters of a gritty look on high school-style existentialism. As the National Geographic Channel puts it, think again.

John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe of "Desperate Housewives") is the star of their high school's basketball team, and he's secretly dating three girls simultaneously. Upon learning how their "serial-cheating" boyfriend is three-timing them, cheerleader Heather (Ashanti), intellectual Carrie (Arielle Kebbel) and activist Beth (Sophia Bush) plot for revenge. They set him to fall for new girl Kate Spencer (Brittany Snow) and have her break his heart later on.

So that's "John Tucker Must Die." It's a film that tries to go for the feel-good parts of the standard teen flick, along with the usual high school relationship subplots. But gritty it's not. Though initially the movie seems to head towards being an effective satirical comedy, it immediately becomes just another stock sleaze. Betty Thomas' direction is breezy enough but she fails to give the film a distinctive bite as Jeff Lowell's screenplay seems not to draw a bead on to the vaguest notion of creativity.

Metcalfe is effective as the eponymous lead while Snow (who I recall as Zoe in "The Pacifier") could have been charming but the problematic script doesn't give her a juicy character that could rise beyond its stereotype and she ends up bland. In fact, one could arguably root more for John Tucker. As for the rest of the cast, they're a mixed bag with Ashanti and Jenny McCarthy as Kate's mom figuring prominently in my head.

"John Tucker Must Die" isn't so much an absolute schlock. Despite its transparent and derivative nature, it does have some of its moments that elicit chuckles. It's that sort of movies I watch on sleepless nights on cable given the right mood. But with a title as toothsome as that, it tantalizingly could have been way better.

...But, Jesse Metcalfe is still hot. Shame about his limited acting ability though, as the infamous John Tucker was simply a more confident version of his "Desperate Housewives" character John Rowland, but nevertheless, Metcalfe seems to enjoy his characters, and certainly makes them come to life. In the case of "John Tucker must Die", Metcalfe's John Tucker is the most popular guy in school and a total player, cheating on three girls from different social circles, who were never meant to find out - until they unexpectedly had gym class together.

The three girls being Ashanti's bitchy cheerleader Heather, Arielle Kebbel's smart hard working Carrie, and Sophia Bush's semi-reject, semi-slutty Beth. The girls all dislike each other very much and argue about who Tucker likes the most, but new girl Kate (played by the lovely Brittany Snow) points out to the girls that instead of fighting each other, they should be uniting to get revenge on the guy that has lied to them all - and thus begins the four girls attempting to bring down John Tucker.

"John Tucker Must Die" is strictly formulaic in terms of teen-comedies in that situations do not go as planned for the girls, causing Tucker to become even more popular (if that is at all humanly possible). Throw into the mix Kate's inexperience when it comes to guys, being caught between John Tucker and the affections of his brother 'the Other Tucker' Scott (Penn Badgley), and her mother (played very well by Jenny McCarthy) who has a lot of man problems herself.

"John Tucker Must Die" is a highly-likable film in terms of some funny moments, a fairly decent cast, a cool soundtrack and things move at a steady pace, but the main problem is that just when some morals are going to be dished out at the end of the film, something happens and the morals are not told. Which is a big shame, because for the target-audience of this film, they could really use some good morals being dished out to them. Nevertheless, "John Tucker Must Die" is an all-round enjoyable film. Oh - and Ashanti can act, but be warned - her fabulous hair often takes up most of the screen and at times over powers her performance. But she has great hair so that's okay.

John Tucker Must Die is an interesting film. The story follows a new girl, head cheerleader, hippie, and journalist. John Tucker is a popular guy in school. He is known to be a heartbreaker. The girls decided to have revenge against him. The movie is funny and good for passing time.

John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) is a guy who can't be trusted by women and when three of his ex-girlfriends, all from different high school cliques, team up for revenge, they do so with the help of the new girl in town, setting her up with Tucker, with the plan to ruin his reputation and break his heart.

John Tucker Must Die offers plenty of eye candy and a good premise yet the final product is pretty forgettable and standard. I'm actually a little surprised that the film didn't turn out to be better since the trailer was entertaining and the premise offered something a little different. I guess I was expecting something as good as Mean Girls and it was really just direct to DVD material. The script was weak and it used so many clichés. Jeff Lowell should stick with sitcoms since he can't come up with enough interesting material to cover a 90 minute running time.

Director Betty Thomas was equally useless and she just used a generic direction. She didn't capture the teen spirit at all and she was just the wrong person for the job. The dialog was predictable and some of it was really corny. Some of the scenes just tried way too hard to be funny. However, the worst part about it was that the majority of the movie was just dull. Sure it looked nice but it only held a little entertainment value.

The acting was, like the film, standard and forgettable. Jesse Metcalfe was average, neither bad nor great. He should stick to supporting roles since he doesn't have the screen presence to carry a film. Arielle Kebbel may not be a fantastic actress but she does have an engaging quality about her and she had a few good lines. Ashanti was so annoying and over the top. She gave the worst performance out of everyone. Jenny McCarthy was just disturbing to look at and her performance was awful. Brittany Snow was cute although she was also enormously bland. Her character was supposed to be bland at the beginning of the movie but even after she went through a change, she was still pretty un-notable. Sophia Bush was pretty good and she had many funny lines. The one good thing about the cast was that they appeared to be having fun and this helped out a little. Overall, John Tucker Must Die is familiar material and it's not really worth checking out. Rating 5/10

My friend and I weren't sure if we wanted to see this movie or wait until it came out on video. Due to us already seeing almost every other comedy out there, we decided to give this one a try. We were not sure if we'd like it, we thought that it was more for a teenage crowd. We found ourselves laughing out loud throughout the movie and came out thoroughly satisfied with this movie. It was definitely worth seeing and I didn't feel ripped off paying the night-time price. The pranks are hilarious in this film. If you want a good laugh I recommend this movie. Men running around in thong underwear, "it's like having your best friend in a silk hammock". The comments are really fun in this movie.