Monday, August 23, 2010

John Tucker Must Die

Yeah, I watched this one too. Before I talk about that, let me talk about this: Back in the early 90s, when I was living in Europe, I saw a movie called "The Pope Must Die," starring British comedian and character actor Robbie Coltrane as the newly Jeelected Pope. When it was released in the United States, the title was changed to "The Pope Must Diet." That's just funny. That right there was funnier than anything in The Pope Must Die, which was funnier than anything in John Tucker Must Die. But enough about that.

John Tucker Must Die shouldn't have its title changed to John Tucker Must Diet. It should have it's title changed to John Tucker is Awesome, because the titular character -- and the performance by Jesse Metcalfe -- is the only reason to watch this otherwise forgettable, stupid movie. I only watched it because it was a Monday morning, I had the day off, and it happened to be on FX. I kind of liked it, but I can only recommend it to people who have the day off and it's the only thing on TV.

This movie is ostensibly about a group of girls who all had their hearts broken by John Tucker, the school's biggest hunk and all around player. They hatch some wild scheme where one of their friends gets him into a relationship so they can break his heart and get their revenge. Got that? None of it works, however, and whenever they try to humiliate him, he turns it around and embraces it and makes whatever works for him. Like the bit where they tried to humiliate him by having him walk around the halls in a thong (don't ask). Instead of being made into a joke, wearing thongs became the new cool thing to do because all of the guys worship Tucker. I liked this kid and laughed at his antics.

I suppose that is a detriment to the film since the women are supposed to be the heroes -- I think -- but none of their characters were all that engaging (although they were all very pretty) and their plans were stupid. Honestly, so this guy broke your heart. He's the school player. Own up to your own culpibility in dating somebody like that and move on!

 And at the end of the movie, nobody really learned anything or changed all that much. The nerdy girl was now popular, I guess. Luckily, Tucker stayed the same. He had some scene where he admitted that he finally learned how to love, but at the end they showed him hook up with two (!!) chicks he was obviously going to bang. Still, cute movie. I laughed.

5 comments:

Justin Garrett Blum said...

I think I've got you beat: I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past this weekend.

What can I say? There was nothing else to do, I was cooking half the time, and it was the only thing I could really follow at the time.

Only good thing I'll say about the movie is Michael Douglas made me laugh a few times. Matthew McConaughey is just a douche.

Donald said...

Michael Douglas is in that movie? Does that give it more class or make it worse? It could go either way. Was it the Michael Douglas who was in Wall Street or the Michael Douglas from The Ghost and the Darkness?

And I'm gonna disagree with you about McConaughey being a douche. There's never been a cooler guy who's walked the Earth. My boy is living it up. Never been in a good movie, and he's still the coolest guy ever.

Donald said...

I mean, Amistad was almost a good movie. And I *really* enjoyed his performance in Reign of Fire. Why haven't they made Reign of Fire 2 yet? They should be on Reign of Fire 5 by now.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

Michael Douglas plays the lascivious uncle who teaches the douchey McConaughey everything he knows about womanizing. A lot of the jokes are lame, but Douglas makes more of them work than really should.

And when I called McConaughey a douche, I was primarily talking about his character in the film, who was just unredeemably cheesy.

This movie reminded me of this thing from an episode of Family Guy where Stewie is trying to tell McConaughey how much he sucks, and MM just can't be offended, because he already knows he sucks, but he's so cool that he doesn't care.

Justin Garrett Blum said...

Just copying this, typos and all:

Stewie: "You know Matthew, I may not get another chance to say this, so I just want to get this off my chest: you are just awful. You are one of the worst actors in the history of film and I think that you need to go away."
Matthew McConaughey: "Aw thanks, man. The truth is I spend at least 90% of my year going away, exploring exploring exotic places, having sex with my beautiful girlfriend and just doing sit-ups. I mean that's really--then counting money. Money that I made off those terrible films that i put out into the American populous because they just love to see me, doing what it is that I do."
Stewie: "Yes, but you're not hearing me. 'Dazed and Confused' was the one thing that was passable. After that-"
Matthew McConuaghey: "Aw, thanks man. That actually launched my career."
Stewie: "After that, e-everything else was awful. 'Contact', the-they didn't even need you. They didn't even need you in that movie. They could've done the whole movie without you."
Matthew McConaughey: "I know, I said the same thing; but they were just like 'aw, we just need a good-looking guy with a great ass and some tight abs who can just provide some down-home enthusiasm in this picture.' Something to counterbalance Jodie Foster. They took her to be slightly cold, uh, unapproachable, do ya know? So they put me in there. I said it didn't make any sense. I said the same thing about that Bill Murray elephant movie. But they were like: 'oh but the audicences need you.'"
Stewie: "You make me physically sick to my stomach, and I wish that you would get a heart attack."
Matthew McConaughey: "I totally feel ya man. The truth of the matter is, I don't like my movies either. But, uh, man, they just keep offering me money, and I do it, and I get to go around the world. I mean, did you see 'Sahara'?!? HAHA! But I'll tell you what that movie gave me was an opportunity to take an Airstream all across the country and sell that picture one person at a time."
Stewie: "You suck donkey ass."
Matthew McConaughey: "Now, you can't prove that!"