MOVIE REVIEWS
John Tucker Must Die
Jay Perry
I’ve never wanted to die while sitting through a movie.
That was until I met John Tucker.
“But you don’t fall into the target audience that this film is trying to reach!” some uptight, pompous film snob said to me after the film was over. I raised my eyebrow at him and then promptly ripped his face off with my bare hands. Then I ate it because that’s how I solve all my life confrontations.
He’s damn right that John Tucker Must Die isn’t appealing to the target audience that I’m associated with: a scarce group that enjoys good films. This unoriginal, half-hearted attempt at a teen comedy is a disgrace to the genre, which is sad, considering the genre is fucking TEEN COMEDY. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a good teen comedy when done correctly (i.e., Mean Girls). Needless to say, John Tucker Must Die did it incorrectly. For lack of a better term, it was a royal fuck-up.
What made Mean Girls so enjoyable, aside from Lindsay Lohan’s breasts making you appreciate the laws of gravity, was the malicious, yet fairly accurate depiction of high school life. Unless you were home schooled (in which case I send a resounding “Hah!” in your general direction), you could associate any of the characters from Mean Girls with your former high school classmates. But, where Mean Girls succeeded in giving originally assumed stereotypical characters some depth, John Tucker Must Die fails miserably. The characters are about as deep as an empty kiddie pool.
The plot of John Tucker Must Die is a simple one: John Tucker, whose popularity amongst his peers rivals that of TV’s Patrick Duffy during his golden years, gets caught in his own clichd web of lies by his three girlfriends, each representing a different clique from the high school smorgasbord. Manipulating the shy, attractive new girl in town to aid them in their quest for reputation destruction, the girls hatch some of the most “diabolical” (the kind of diabolical that you would find in a Britney Spears song) schemes in an effort to “kill” John Tucker. Unfortunately, no killing takes place in the film. However, I can assure you that plenty of your brain cells will be bursting with each passing minute of this one-dimensional shitfest.
The big premise of this film is that Tucker’s previously mentioned Patrick Duffy-like popularity shields him from being the laughing stock of the school. No matter what these broads plan for him, he turns it around to build on his popularity. The girls even go as far as to trick Tucker into wearing a thong, eventually leading him to be exposed to his basketball teammates and coach. The next day, he shows up to practice, sporting a thong underneath his shorts, claiming that this female-oriented undergarment allows him to move more freely than ever before. He then goes on to deliver a slam-dunk display that would make the Harlem Globetrotters blush. Sure enough, his teammates as well as every fucking boy in the school begin to sport the “ass-floss.” Personally, I can’t vouch for the enhanced maneuverability that a thong offers, so I’ll have to take John Tucker’s word for it. I must say though, if wearing a thong can make you pull of a dunk that hasn’t been seen since NBA Jam for the Super Nintendo, then I may have to hit up my local Victoria’s Secret and ask if they have anything in a black silk.
My favorite scheme, and by favorite I mean the scheme that made me only want to slit one wrist instead of two, would have to be when the gals slip estrogen pills into John’s water bottle, causing emotional instability and sore, tender pectorals. His emotional breakdown during a game doesn’t cause as big of a backlash as one would think: all the girls simply just want to bone him more. Apparently, girls just love a guy that shows his emotions. I never thought that was true: a real girl loves an emotionless man who would prefer to eye-rape her at a bar instead of introducing himself and striking up a conversation. At least that’s what my Dad tells me from the other side of the glass window during visiting hours.
This film clocks in at running time of 87 minutes, but in all honesty, it feels wee-bit longer: roughly on-par with spending an eternity in Hell. It’s tough to say which is better: getting a pitchfork in the ass or sitting through the cinematic diarrhea that is John Tucker Must Die. After some serious thought, I’ve decided the pitchfork in the posterior is the way to go: the pitchfork is only hurting your ass while sitting through John Tucker Must Die causes full-body agony.
I could continue my verbal tirade on how the acting never raises above the level of mediocrity or that the dialogue is tripe, but why bother? This film just further proves the point that there’s a film out there for everyone…
And whomever those people, please pray that they don’t procreate.
