‘Dude, I’m deep. I’m dating the poetry club…’
I’ve pondered before how certain films end up on my watchlist. I often find myself baffled at what I have at some point decided to spend my life doing. Well, dear reader, I confidently state that I have absolutely no idea how this middling Mean Girls rip-off ended up in my life, but here we are…
From director Betty Thomas (28 Days) and writer Jeff Lowell, John Tucker Must Die sees four teenage girls unite to destroy the reputation of local heartthrob John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe). The girls are played by Arielle Kebbel (the smart one), Ashanti (the cheerleader) and Sophia Bush (the ‘slut’ to use the parlance of the film itself). Brittany Snow is the Cady Heron substitute and the cast is rounded out by Jenny McCarthy as the ‘hot mom’ and Penn Badgley sporting one of the worst haircuts in modern history as the nice guy.
John Tucker Must Die is not a terrible film by any means. It’s competently filmed. The leads are all likeable and they all seem very clean. The soundtrack is pleasingly 2006 (The All-American Rejects! OK Go! Hot Hot Heat!). The issue here is that this film is just so derivative of similar films that have come before. The ubiquitous shadow of Mean Girls looms large and I find myself just wishing that I was watching that film throughout John Tucker Must Die. It doesn’t help that Metcalfe offers nothing in the titular role and also that much of the film’s humour has become horribly dated (and wasn’t funny even in 2006).
While I’m still baffled as to why I have watched this film as a man who is nearly forty, I can’t deny that I didn’t enjoy the experience. The finale even echoes Carrie in its own normie way but any teen comedy that flirts with horror is fine by me. Having said that, once again, I would advise just watching Mean Girls instead.
