the Mind’s Chew Toy

This past summer, Heather and I tried to see a new movie every week. On July 28th, we had to decide between 3 new films: The Ant Bully, Miami Vice and John Tucker Must Die. We picked Miami Vice - and hated it. Now that John Tucker Must Die has arrived on DVD, we wanted to find out if we should have picked John instead of Miami.

Jesse Metcalfe has made a name for himself recently thanks to his stint as a half-clad lawn boy on Desperate Housewives. He became an idol to many women, thanks to his constant shirtless attire…and an envy to many men, thanks to his tryst with sexy Eva Longoria. So, a film where he plays the idol of his whole highschool - well, that doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch, does it?

Despite the ridiculous situations the film puts him through, he does a decent job of portraying his character, who is both brash and kind-hearted. While this seems to be the leading man of any teen girl-oriented film, he does manage to pull it off without wincing too much at the cheesy-ness he is surrounded by.

The girls also seem to get into their roles, even though their characters are so typical of these films they are almost see-through. Namewise, singer Ashanti leads the pack, and does a decent job in her first acting role. She and her co-horts play their characters as best they can, but the writers don’t give them a whole lot to work with.

Sadly, at it’s base, John Tucker Must Die doesn’t seem to be it’s own film. Instead, it seems to be a haphazard assortment of film bits that have worked in previous teen films, thrown together as fast as possible, and then thrust into the theaters in the hopes that Jesse and Ashanti’s combined starpower among teens would bring kids flocking to see it. While this can be said for many teeny-bopper films, John seems to showcase that fact more obviously than most do. Sadly, most teenage girls won’t remember the other films, and probably will snatch this up on DVD just to drool over Jesse Metcalfe. And Ashanti may even attract some teenage boys to this film as well.

Once the viewer is over the age of 15 or so, however, this movie loses all interest. With it’s cheesy characters, overly-familiar situations, and that dash of man-bashing that every girl-power movie possesses, John Tucker Must Die comes off as incredibly boring, and rather unfunny.

If you are looking for a teen movie, try classics like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles or - if you want something more recent - Bring It On. They contain a lot of similar scenes, but are much more enjoyable.

John Tucker Must Die is a good movie to let your teens watch, while you sit down and check out a film that has more depth than, say, a cracker.