Directed by:
Betty Thomas
Starring:
Jesse Metcalfe …. John Tucker
Brittany Snow …. Kate Spencer
Ashanti …. Heather
Sophia Bush …. Beth
Arielle Kebbel …. Carrie Schaefer
Penn Badgley …. Scott Tucker
Jenny McCarthy …. Lori Spencer
20th Century Fox presents John Tucker Must Die. Written by Jeff Lowell. Running time: 89 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sexual content and language). Released on DVD: November 14, 2006. Available at Amazon.com.
With a name like “John Tucker Must Die” one would expect the film to be some type of dark comedy ala Heathers, Mean Girls or perhaps even Jawbreaker. Instead we get “John Tucker Must Be Humiliated In Front Of Everyone In a PG-13 Fashion.” That would have been a much more suitable title, doesn’t quite roll off the tongue but at least it’s honest.
The film revolves around Kate Spencer, a sweet girl next door type who moves from town to town because of her mothers poor choice in relationships. After a while she gave up calling her mothers latest suitor by his real name, instead giving them all the nickname of “Skip,” since that’s what their next move usually was. Then she sees John Tucker, the guy every girl wants to be with, then she sees the darker side of her prince charming. A triple crossing shyster who uses his high school sports competition schedule as an excuse to fool around with multiple girls. His current roster of girlfriends include Heather, a sassy cheerleader who takes no guff; Beth, a vegan activist who seems to be quite unknowingly promiscuous, and then there’s the goody two shoes Carrie who spends all of her free time working at school to help pad out her college application forms.
John Tucker is the man every guy wishes he was back in high school. He always gets the game winning basket, all the guys want to be him and all the girls want to be with him. So it comes to no surprise that since he has unlimited possibilities relationship-wise that he would want to play the field a little bit. Even wiser, he picks girls from different cliques so that they all remain none the wiser. Until the three girls he’s currently seeing finally figure out what’s going on. They’re not too happy. Luckily for these girls, Kate’s upbringing with her mothers horrible track record with men has made her quite the expert on men of Tucker’s nature.
So to get revenge on Mr. Perfect, they begin devising a plan to completely destroy Tuckers public image, making it so he can never get a date ever again. In high school anyway. So the girls start putting some of these ideas in to action, things like making him the poster boy for genital herpes, or mixing estrogen in with his bulk up powder mix. Each time backfiring in their faces and making John even more irresistible to his female classmates. So much to the point where he breaks up with all three thinking he can do much better. That’s when the girls really want to take him down, which is where they decide to make Kate his next conquest, and then use her against him. But when she starts to fall for him the other girls aren’t sure if she’s up to the task of bringing him down.
At first the film seems like it could go somewhere interesting and may be worth sitting through, then the girls start scheming and the whole picture falls apart. The girls take Kate and teach her how to be hot, in hopes that she’ll win over Tucker and when the timing is right, break his heart. For some reason the writer drops nearly every single build up the film started, making you wonder why he even bothered with the first thirty pages at all. Then again, not many people like to pay ten dollars for things that are an hour long, but I doubt they like being tortured by boring films either.
the film plays up all the stereotypes from high school, films and films about high school. Not once trying to break new ground or even polish them up a bit. No, instead we get the smart bookworm, the sexy head cheerleader, the vegan environmentalist, and the awkward new girl who doesn’t know anybody. All fawning after the captain of the basketball team and overall top dog of the high school.
Fresh off his stint on Desperate Housewives, it made sense for Jesse Metcalfe to capitalize on his new found fame by using it to catapult himself in to films. But how he thought a safe, pointless, forgettable film like this was the best move will surely leave many wondering if he destroyed all of his momentum with this project.
And in a first, Jenny McCarthy is the real show stealer here as Kate’s mom, something this reviewer never thought he would say about the former MTV Spring Break Co-Host. The four female leads don’t necessarily do a bad job in the movie, but the material they’re given to work with is just so one dimensional there is very little leg room for them to build these characters in to something that feels new or exciting.
There isn’t much to say about John Tucker Must Die that’s worth writing or reading. But I will say this, its not every day a film culminates in a completely unpredictable and illogical food fight for no apparent reason. So for that John Tucker should get… something.
Video:
(Presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen and 1.33:1 Fullframe)
The video presentation here is near pristine, maintaining the one thing people went out to see the film for in the first place – attractive 20-somethings playing teens. A few camera shots using a steady cam in the high school give the video a nice pop. Black levels are maintained with only a small hint of edge enhancement.
Audio:
(English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Spanish & French 2.0 Surround)
The movies very hip and modern punk rock soundtrack can be heard very clearly through all the channels. Other than that this is still your everyday teen comedy where the only thing that really matters is if you can clearly make out what the actors are saying, and the track does that nicely.
Extras:
I should note that this DVD packaging promotes an extended version of the film that you “couldn’t see in theaters.” The difference between the two cuts is a meagre nine seconds of footage. I’m sure if I tried hard enough I could find out what the difference was, but something tells me not much was included since both cuts seemed identically awful to me.
Feature Length Commentary – The track features director Betty Thomas and editor Mark Friedman. Writer Jeff Lowell was apparently suppose to join them but is mysteriously missing, I couldn’t possibly wonder why. They spend most of the time talking about the filming schedule for all of the actors involved, and how most were going back and forth between their TV shows or musical concerts. Most of the track is repetitive, where the two talk about filming on location, and how most scenes were edited down for pace. However, not all commentary tracks include such classics lines as “She was a trooper, she took a lot of balls to the face.”
Deleted Scenes (1:03) – During the commentary track for the film Thomas talks about only two scene being cut out from the final cut of the movie, so here they are. Neither add anything to the movie and are cut for obvious reasons. There is an optional director’s commentary for both and she admits to the two scenes being cut because they add nothing to the main plot or characters.
Grrrl Power (4:17) – This featurette takes a look at the predominantly female cast, which ultimately boils down to the actors praising Betty Thomas and how wonderful it was working with her. It’s cut in a very EPK style with tiny bits of information flying at you one after another.
Cutting Class with Jesse Metcalfe (3:56) – Here Jesse takes us on a quick no frills look behind the scene of filming John Tucker. He shows us the school that was used for shooting, a quick look at a scene being shot and eventually his trailer. Not very insightful, but it goes by quickly.
Kodiak Yearbook (3:49) – The principle cast tell tales about their high school experiences.
On the Rebound (1:59) – This is a simple little feature about Metcalfe’s basketball skills and looks at some of the work that was put in to getting the shots they needed.
John Tucker Must Die Dating Quiz (2:44) – Is basically a glorified trailer.
Also on the DVD are the films theatrical trailer, a video of People in Planes performing “Instantly Gratified” and a soundtrack promo spot.
