The Perfect Score Review
by Andy Keast (arthistoryguy AT aol DOT com)February 2nd, 2004
The Perfect Score (2004): 1/2* out of ****
Directed by Brian Robbins. Screenplay by Mark Schwahn, Marc Hyman and Jon Zack. Starring Erika Christensen, Chris Evans, Bryan Greenberg, Scarlett Johansson, Darius Miles and Leonardo Nam.
"The Perfect Score" is precisely the kind of movie that high school students, in all their inexperience and false senses of urgency, would make. The screenplay is really more of a story idea than a story, the kind of thing that 10th grade boys would sit around the cafeteria daydreaming about. Of course, it's only after these daydreams are distilled into a Hollywood film that the people who came up with it realize how very wrong they where when they thought anyone else might enjoy it. That's a fancy way of saying the movie is bad, and
not the fun kind of bad. Its light years away from being fun-bad. I felt trapped in the theater the whole time.
And away we go. The narration is delivered by a kid who sounds as if he just got back from talking to a girl for the very first time, and is describing his little impetuous episode to his friends. The plot involves a group of high school kids who plan on improving their chances of college admission by stealing the answer key to the Standardized Aptitude Test. And that's all. The rest of it is filler comprised of wooden sitcom acting, painful dialogue, overcooked characterizations and digressions so pointless, so ham-fisted, so happy to beat every joke into it's grave.
This was filmed in the summer of 2002, and I'd imagine the only reason this movie saw the light of day is that it stars Scarlett Johansson, who is noticeably younger. Note also the pop soundtrack and an outdated spoofing of stunts performed in "The Matrix" (my art history skills at work). It's as if hell's wrath trotted this thing out in order to capitalize on the success of "Lost in Translation." Johansson herself is even lackluster and cartoonish here.
There's an undertone to the film that is particularly repulsive: it's not as if
these kids are stupid. The movie points out that they have good-to-excellent GPAs already, and that they'll most likely get into good colleges regardless of
their SAT scores. Considering this and the fact that they want the test answers so they'll be able to apply to a college like Cornell and not have to "settle on a place like Syracuse," the movie doesn't exactly instill in me a lot of sympathy for them. I pondered that throughout the entire movie. Just why should I give a damn whether or not some wealthy suburbanite kids successfully steal their way into an Ivy League school?
More on 'The Perfect Score'...
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