...But, Jesse Metcalfe is still hot. Shame about his limited acting ability though, as the infamous John Tucker was simply a more confident version of his "Desperate Housewives" character John Rowland, but nevertheless, Metcalfe seems to enjoy his characters, and certainly makes them come to life. In the case of "John Tucker must Die", Metcalfe's John Tucker is the most popular guy in school and a total player, cheating on three girls from different social circles, who were never meant to find out - until they unexpectedly had gym class together.
The three girls being Ashanti's bitchy cheerleader Heather, Arielle Kebbel's smart hard working Carrie, and Sophia Bush's semi-reject, semi-slutty Beth. The girls all dislike each other very much and argue about who Tucker likes the most, but new girl Kate (played by the lovely Brittany Snow) points out to the girls that instead of fighting each other, they should be uniting to get revenge on the guy that has lied to them all - and thus begins the four girls attempting to bring down John Tucker.
"John Tucker Must Die" is strictly formulaic in terms of teen-comedies in that situations do not go as planned for the girls, causing Tucker to become even more popular (if that is at all humanly possible). Throw into the mix Kate's inexperience when it comes to guys, being caught between John Tucker and the affections of his brother 'the Other Tucker' Scott (Penn Badgley), and her mother (played very well by Jenny McCarthy) who has a lot of man problems herself.
"John Tucker Must Die" is a highly-likable film in terms of some funny moments, a fairly decent cast, a cool soundtrack and things move at a steady pace, but the main problem is that just when some morals are going to be dished out at the end of the film, something happens and the morals are not told. Which is a big shame, because for the target-audience of this film, they could really use some good morals being dished out to them. Nevertheless, "John Tucker Must Die" is an all-round enjoyable film. Oh - and Ashanti can act, but be warned - her fabulous hair often takes up most of the screen and at times over powers her performance. But she has great hair so that's okay.
