Bovie Movie

This film tells the tale of the Harper Affair, in which young Jimmy Harper finds his life of promise turn into a life of debauchery and murder thanks to the new drug menace marijuana. Along the way he receives help from his girlfriend Mary and Jesus himself, but always finds himself in the arms of the Reefer Man and the rest of the denizens of the Reefer Den.

Jesse Metcalfe bares his chest rather than his soul as the eponymous John Tucker in this pedestrian high-school comedy. But in a departure from his role as a lovesick gardener in TV’s Desperate Housewives, Metcalfe shows his range by playing a calculating womaniser. Brittany Snow supplies the cute factor as the new girl who’s so keen to fit in that she’s co-opted into breaking Tucker’s heart by a trio of his vengeful ex-girlfriends (including singer Ashanti). Their plans to make Tucker “undateable” include tricking him into fronting an awareness campaign for a sexually transmitted disease. Still, at least gags like this help to offset the gushing sentiment that puts a dampener on everything. Despite the film’s attention-grabbing title, director Betty Thomas can’t supply any of the bitchy social satire that made the Lindsay Lohan vehicle Mean Girls so enjoyable. 

This comic-book adaptation tries hard, but Fantastic Four fails on too many levels to compete with the likes of Spider-Man. The uninspired storyline sees the members of a space expedition — Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon — travel through a strange cosmic storm that gives them all different superpowers (stretchiness, brute strength, invisibility, flammable tendencies, the ability to manipulate electricity). As McMahon turns evil (not to mention camp) and the remaining foursome try to stop him, what should be colourful fun turns rather inert and lifeless. Evans and Chiklis lend some life to the team’s adventures as rock-like “the Thing” and fire-boy “the Human Torch”, and there is at least one decent sustained action scene. But The Incredibles did the whole family of superheroes thing with much more wit, grace and pizzazz.