John Tucker Must Die (DVD)

The sprightly high school comedy John Tucker Must Die doesn't cover any new ground or do things we do not expect. It offers no insights any more substantive than skin deep and tends to be about as superficial as a bag of donuts at a Weight Watchers meeting. It's all style; perfect clothes, makeup, hair, bodies, manners; over everything and anything else, and watching it go about its merry way definitely requires checking your brains at the door.

That said, this latest concoction from Betty Thomas (the director of The Brady Bunch Movie and 28 Days) is an awful lot of fun at times with its exuberant cast of youngsters throwing their energetic all into each every scene. It's frothy B-movie fun, and despite a climax which hasn't the first clue as to what to do with itself overall this slight entertainment manages to emerge a semi-winning surprise. However, I am not saying this is some high school classic like say Fast Times at Ridgemont High or The Breakfast Club.

This is the story of three teenage girls (Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel) from different cliques dating the same guy, the titular John Tucker (Jesse Metcalf), who conspire to use a new girl in school (Brittany Snow) to humiliate him in front of the entire student body. Yeah, not exactly rocket science. Jeff Lowell's screenplay includes the sex jokes, homophobic humor, wild make-out sessions and unintended gross-outs we've readily come to expect from these sorts of films, not exactly a showcase for crafty witticism or clever repartee.

Casting negatives aside, the cast is great, especially "One Tree Hill" sex kitten Bush who shows a gift for physical comedy I never expected. Thomas guides them all through their comedic paces perfectly. This movie may be insubstantial and relatively pointless, but at least it's entertaining, and with so many supposedly 'important' motion pictures failing miserable I'll take relatively breezy films like this any day.

Fox's DVD release of John Tucker Must Die is exactly what you would expect it to be. This dual-sided disc contains both the theatrical release version and an unrated extended cut (although, in all honesty I can't for the life of me figure out what's been added) in both fullscreen and widescreen (1.85:1) versions. As for special features, there is the theatrical trailer, a jovial audio commentary from the director and editor Matt Friedman, a stupid promo short titled "The John Tucker Dating Quiz," an on set tour with star Metcalf, a music video from People on Planes and four super-short featurettes covering the comedy's production.

This isn't a great movie. Those expecting something on the level of Clueless or Mean Girls will be sorely disappointed. But for those willing to just let it wash over them for 90 minutes John Tucker Must Die is hardly a waste of time. It's bouncy, funny and filled with winning performances from its cast of relative newcomers. As a rental, it's hard to imagine this one killing anybody's entertainment interests.