The most useful thing I could say regarding “John Tucker Must Die” would be a warning to discerning parents of 10- or 11-year-old girls. If the kids remain blissfully ignorant about sex jokes, keep them well away from this tart-tongued mediocrity.
“John Tucker Must Die” is one of those ‘tweener high school romps that prove just how tone-deaf the ratings system and Hollywood marketing wizards can be. The girls dress like pole dancers with the surgery to back it up, the guys can’t wait to “tap that,” and the parents stuck in the audience can only hope the mom in the next row who brought her 6-year-old is blushing in the dark.
But what if you’re 15, you say, or the mall chauffeur dropping four 13-year-olds at the cineplex for the afternoon? In that case, the plot of “John Tucker” is serviceable, akin to any number of Shakespeare knockoffs like “She’s the Man.”
Just know that a graduating class full of thrusting hips and double entendres earns “John Tucker” every bit of its PG-13 rating. When Jenny McCarthy plays the responsible maternal figure, enough has been said.
Can you tell I sat between an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old, and could barely keep my mind on the movie for all my embarrassment?
I did manage to catch a few of the story twists. Brittany Snow is Kate, who in voice-over tells us her mother picks losers for dates, and then leaves town every time she breaks up. (For those paying attention, yes, this was exactly the beginning of last year’s “The Perfect Man.” For a minute there, I thought the screening had simply ordered a DVD from Netflix.)
At her new high school, John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) is captain of the basketball team and the local lothario. He dates the most beautiful girls at school and lies to all of them. Three of the wronged girls link up with Kate to try to ruin Tucker’s perfect life.
Of course Kate is the bait, luring him into his first real love and then dumping him. Of course Kate will fall for the jerk, meanwhile leaving a more deserving boy to choke on her glitter.
The tricks on John Tucker include falsely outing him as a carrier of genital herpes, and putting estrogen in his weightlifting supplements so that he can cry and otherwise “act like a girl.”
On second thought, parents, keep all those daughters at home no matter what the age: Isn’t high school hard enough without dreck like this? Former “Hill Street Blues” tough-woman cop Betty Thomas directs “John Tucker” as if it were a TV episode starring Hilary Duff. Thomas has done much better – see “Private Parts” and “The Brady Bunch Movie.” This one feels as if it were mailed in during senior skip week.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
“John Tucker Must Die”
PG-13 for language and strongly suggestive sexual content|1 hour, 26 minutes|TEEN COMEDY|Directed by Betty Thomas; written by Jeff Lowell; starring Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel|Opens today at area theaters.
