Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

R-JENERATION MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Perfect Score' only average when it comes to the plot

The stars of "The Perfect Score" include, clockwise from front and center, Chris Evans as Kyle, Scarlett Johansson as Francesca, Leonardo Nam as Roy, Bryan Greenberg as Matty, Darius Miles as Desmond and Erika Christensen as Anna.

Movies take awhile to make. A lot can happen in the 24-odd months between initial shooting and distribution.

Sometimes unpleasant things can happen in the interim. The stars of a handful of movies have died before their films were released. Some films had to be postponed because of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "The Perfect Score," a new movie from MTV Films, isn't affected by anything of such magnitude, but it is prey to a case of bad timing.

"The Perfect Score," which tells the story of six teenagers who attempt to steal the answers to the SAT, is unfortunate enough to be released mere months after the Educational Testing Service, ending decades of peddling the same test, announced it will replace the current SAT with an almost altogether different exam in 2005.

The 1,600 these students dream of scoring soon will be seen as an average score, and stealing the answers won't prepare them for the essay the SAT will soon integrate. Then again, I'm not sure the creators care that much. Teen movies typically don't have a long half-life -- classics such as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" notwithstanding -- so maybe it doesn't matter that this film will no longer apply in a year.

The film includes ringleaders Kyle (Chris Evans) and Matty (Bryan Greenberg), insider Francesca (Scarlett Johansson, who starred opposite Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation"), salutatorian Anna (Erika Christensen), stoner Roy (Leonardo Nam) and basketball phenom Desmond (Darius Miles, who was actually the third overall pick in the 2000 NBA draft and plays for the Portland Trailblazers).

As a side note, Miles' character debates whether to go to St. Johns University, the college he deferred from to go professional in real life. He's pretty much playing himself, which explains why he seemed so natural in the role.

The justification for stealing the answers is never really nailed down. It pretty much comes down to the fact that the test is hard, a feeble excuse if I ever heard one. It seems like the moral is it's OK to steal if you're a hip, young teenager and it's from a large corporation, in which case I advise you all to sneak into the movie without paying MTV.

The film is standard teen fare. Your suspicions about where the characters will end up by the end of the film are probably correct. Jokes are usually of the "he said what we were all thinking" variety, typically coming out of the mouth of Roy, who actually sells them quite well. And for an MTV film, there's very little MTV-style editing, aside from freeze-frame bios. The only clever camera trick used is inserting Roy into the hypothetical heist plans so he can point out faults.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that it seemed to pick students who have the least need for a perfect SAT score. Two are Ivy League bound, one's a computer genius, one already has a high SAT score, and one's a professional-caliber athlete. For a movie that seems content to capitalize on the typical, shared teen experience of taking the SAT, the filmmakers seemed to pick a group of atypical kids.

"The Perfect Score" is not a horrible movie. It's simply unremarkable.

Rating: C