I have the television on while I'm doing other things, so I end up seeing a lot of movies. I will leave on movies just starting when flipping through the channels, which is how I have ended up seeing some really good movies. Unfortunately, I've also ended up watching some really horrible movies that I have felt compelled to finish watching for some reason. John Tucker Must Die was one of the horrible movies.

Kate didn't fit in at school, partly because she and her single mother Lori moved a lot. Lori tended to move when her relationships fell apart. Kate was feeling like an outcast yet again at her newest school. That changed after three very different girls got into a fight in gym class over John Tucker. It turned out that he had been dating Heather, Beth, and Carrie at the same time. John had deliberately picked girls from different social groups so that they wouldn't find out about each other. Kate ended up in detention with Heather, Beth, and Carrie and was pulled into the other girls’ plan for revenge.

At first they tried silly things that didn't work and actually made John more popular somehow. They then decided to make over Kate and get John to fall in love with her. Once that happened, Kate was supposed to publicly dump him. To make things even more complicated, Kate had a crush on Scott, John’s less popular brother.

There was nothing complicated about what was going on in John Tucker Must Die. Time was taken at the beginning to show how John was dating all three of the girls, telling each of them how much he cared for her. He even took them all to the same restaurant. When Heather, Beth, and Carried found out about each other, they first started fighting before eventually listening to what Kate said about John. After that, the three decided to work together to get revenge. The entire movie was just stupid and offered no suspense. It wasn’t interesting at all.

I’m guessing that John Tucker Must Die was supposed to be some sort of comedy, possibly a black romantic comedy because of the somewhat twisted plot focused on revenge. There were several attempts at humor throughout the movie that I felt fell flat and didn’t work at all. The movie never made me laugh, so it was a huge failure as a comedy. The only thing that was mildly funny was when John was shown wearing women’s underwear though it was more silly than anything. Anyone wanting to watch a funny movie should pick something else.

If John Tucker Must Die was supposed to be a romantic comedy, it failed. There was nothing romantic about what was going on. John was dating Heather, Beth, and Carrie at the same time for part of the movie. He told all three of them the same thing about how he felt about them and even had an excuse about why he couldn’t really have a girlfriend. He got away with dating all three of them for as long as he did because the three hadn’t interacted previously. John was shown kissing all the girls, even Kate, at least once. After Kate admitted to not knowing how to kiss, Carrie decided to give her a lesson. That was obviously done just to try to appeal to male viewers who get a kick out of seeing two women make out. John was shown shirtless more than once and he did show up almost naked when he was wearing a thong. It was made clear that John was sexually active without there being any actual sex scenes. Carrie made remarks about her sex life as well. Lori was set up as a woman who was very sexually active and changed relationships more often than some people change their underwear. There wasn’t any sort of positive message about relationships in the movie. The movie was rated PG-13 for the sexual content. I think the movie was targeting teens, but I don’t think it would be a good choice for them to view.

The entire movie revolved around John Tucker, the most popular boy in the high school and star of the basketball team. He was a cocky and arrogant jerk, believing he could do whatever he wanted without any repercussions. He lied to the girls he was dating and really wasn’t treating them good even though it seemed like he was. Jesse Metcalfe became popular for his role on Desperate Housewives and that was probably a big reason why he got this part. I wasn’t impressed with him at all.

Heather was the head cheerleader and seemed to think she was better than everyone else and entitled to date John because he was the star of the basketball team. Heather was a stuck up snob who wasn’t likable in any way. There wasn’t anything special about Ashanti in the part. Beth was very intelligent and also tended to look down on others. Arielle Kebbel was fine in the part. Others thought that Carrie was a slut and that description did seem to fit after hearing a few things she said about herself. Sophia Bush really didn’t do that much with the part.

Kate also served as a narrator for the story. She was frequently putting herself down about how she had no friends and didn’t fit in. Her poor me bits did get very old and annoying. Brittany Snow didn’t impress me either. Lori and Kate didn’t seem to have a close mother daughter relationship. Lori jumped from relationship to relationship and then packed up and moved when they failed without stopping to consider how that was impacting her daughter. Lori did seem to be a bit flaky. Jenny McCarthy fit the flighty aspect of the character fine but wasn’t believable as a mother of a teenager who was probably seventeen or eighteen. Penn Badgley turned up in a few scenes as John’s brother Scott.

Main Cast

Ashanti - Heather
Penn Badgley - Scott Tucker
Sophia Bush - Carrie
Arielle Kebbel - Beth
Jenny McCarthy - Lori
Jesse Metcalfe - John Tucker
Brittany Snow - Kate

Betty Thomas - Director

I watched John Tucker Must Die on one of the HBO stations that I get. I am very grateful that I didn’t rent the movie and pay specifically for it. The movie is available on DVD, though I don’t know what sort of extras are on the disc. I can’t imagine being interested in any of them.

John Tucker Must Die was one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long time. The plot was stupid, none of the characters were likable, and the acting wasn’t that great. This movie should be avoided.



Recommended: No