5.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.8 |
Three ex-girlfriends of a serial cheater set up their former lover to fall for the new girl in town so they can watch him get his heart broken.
Starring: Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Penn Badgley, Sophia BushComedy | 100% |
Romance | 70% |
Teen | 35% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
German: DTS 5.1
Italian: DTS 5.1
Japanese: DTS 5.1
Russian: DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Ukrainian: Dolby Digital 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 2.0
Turkish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Brazilian Portuguese. Castilian Spanish DTS and Latin American Spanish Dolby Digital. Japanese only via Japanese menus.
English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Only 5% of Hollywood movies are directed by women, so it's unfortunate that one of the most prolific female directors--former Hill Street Blues actress Betty Thomas--has consistently produced awful and/or immediately forgettable films, from The Brady Bunch Movie and Private Parts to Dr. Doolittle and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. In 2006, she brought us the tedious teen movie John Tucker Must Die, which tries to mash up Heathers and Mean Girls but only makes a mess. Unfunny, lifeless, and totally out of touch with actual teen culture, the movie somehow raked in a modest haul at the box office while simultaneously being pummeled mercilessly by critics. I'm not going to bother getting into the obvious disconnect between what audiences want and what specialized film writers expect from "good" films, but let me just say that even among movies of this sort--lightweight comedies for and about horny teenagers--this one is extraordinarily empty-headed. I can only surmise that under-18 audiences flocked in droves to see Jesse Metcalf--the hot young gardener from Desperate Housewives--baring his washboard abs and prancing about with mock-embarrassment in a skimpy red thong. Hilarious.
I'm not going to say that John Tucker doesn't look any better on Blu-ray than it did on DVD, but the difference is so negligible that even if you were the movie's biggest fan--I judge not--I don't think it'd be worth upgrading. To put it simply, the film's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer looks lousy, and I'm almost entirely certain that 20th Century Fox just recycled an old high definition master--probably the same one used for the DVD--instead of striking an all-new one. The image is spongy and perpetually soft, with little in the way of what might generously be called "fine detail." Even closeups tend to be blurry, so you can imagine what wider shots look like. It ain't pretty. Color is decently saturated, and the contrast balance is okay, but the overall palette--in combination with the over-bright lighting at times--is gaudy and flat-out unappealing. And then there are the various print issues and compression quirks. Occasionally, the picture seems to judder around inside the frame--not wildly, but noticeably--and the film's chunky grain structure is often overlaid with harsh, bluish chroma noise. Ugly.
20th Century Fox must've sold this title to every market imaginable, because the disc includes no less than ten foreign language dubs and an almost ridiculous selection of subtitles. The disc defaults, of course, to the original English track, which has been given a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound presentation. The audio fares better than the video quality, but this is still a merely serviceable mix. It does what it needs to do--give us understandable dialogue, a modicum of ambience, and a few peppy pop/rock song--and that's about it. There are also a handful of quiet directional effects, but the surrounds channels are mostly used as bleeding room for the music. It works.
An unlikely candidate for a high definition re-rerelease, the teen comedy snoozer John Tucker Must Die nevertheless sneaks onto Blu-ray, where it will doubtlessly land in Wal-Mart bargain bins before summer. I'm really not sure who this one will appeal to anymore. The fourteen-year-olds who went to see it in theaters in 2006 have probably forgotten who Jesse Metcalf is by now. Fans of The CW may want to check this one out to see some of their favorite one-time stars, but all others should avoid John Tucker at all costs.
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2006
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2004
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2003
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1999
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1995
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