John Tucker Must Die

Say … haven’t I seen this one before? And before, and before? Oh, that’s right, this is targeted at ’tweens with the pop culture retention of a sieve. Even then, most of them are gonna notice that the subplot was lifted wholesale from last year’s Hilary Duff vehicle, The Perfect Man, and other aspects are recycled from Mean Girls (just not the satirical stuff, y’know … like humor?) and … well, other stuff that all blurs together to make the potpourri that is John Tucker Must Die. The eponymous character is a high school player who dips into different cliques to pool his clueless harem. But, of course, they find out about his ways and then it’s all Bring It On as they plot nasty-minded schemes to shoot his stuff down. Unfortunately, none of them had seen Heathers, so the nastiness falls far short of delivering on the title’s promise. Cool poster, though.