John Tucker Must Die

The most surprising thing about the new teen comedy to brace our screens this summer – and new is relative here, as this is a summer 2006 film – is that it’s directed by a woman. Betty Thomas, the oft mediocre powerhouse behind I Spy and 28 Days, is so out of depth in understanding female sensibilities and high school politics, that it comes as a shocker that the film has any vestiges of entertainment.

The idea here is not to break any new ground at all, you understand. This is a film content with being a high school entertainer pandering to the short attention span of its....