Movie Review: John Tucker Must Die

Why, you're asking, would the sophisticated crowd over at Houstonist waste money on a half-baked teen comedy? Funny you should ask. Houstonist, you see, dated John Tucker. So did our best friend. So, looking for a flashback to high school (and the teen comedies of the late 90s), we took a deep breath, put on our big sunglasses so nobody would recognize us, and mubled "oneforjohntucker" at the ticket counter.

Safely ensconsed in our seat, unrecognized, we found ourselves....enjoying it? It's not a fantastic movie. Or even, maybe, a very good movie. But the story of the title's lothario (the very pretty Jesse Metcalfe) and his three spurned girlfriends (the very pretty Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, and Ashanti), who get revenge on him by setting him up to have his heart broken by their new friend (the very pretty Brittany Snow)--this is escapist fun to the nth degree, and honestly, it works pretty well.

Snow, who TV viewers may recognize as the star of 2004's critically acclaimed American Dreams, is entirely cute as she blunders her way into the popular clique and into the arms of John Tucker. The movie she's found herself in the middle of is somewhere between a homage to the teen comedies of the 90s and a straight-up ripoff of the same. (The popuar girls look a lot like Mean Girls, there are jokes that reference Bring It On). A musical reference to the superior 10 Things I Hate About You, like the other "in-jokes" just came off as funny rather than derivative. John Tucker hasn't got a lot to say, but we laughed out loud at least as often as we did in last week's other comedic opening: Woody Allen's latest.

So if you're looking for a glimpse back at how high school never actually was, a land where the big game and the big party are actually...well...big, check out John Tucker Must Die. Just don't tell anyone you liked it.

Grade: B+