Here's a sample SAT question. A mediocre teen-angst flick leaves MTV Productions at 7 a.m. going 90 mph. A mediocre heist film then leaves Paramount Pictures at 2 p.m. going 60 mph. The collision of the two results in: A) a high-school caper movie devoid of cleverness; B) a vehicle for dull, cliched characters; C) a comedy with surprisingly few laughs; or D) all of the above.
If you answered D, it's quite possible you've seen The Perfect Score, a film about a group of high-school stereotypes who band together to steal the answers to the dreaded SAT. If only they had put as much work into their studies as they put into their cheating scheme, they might have saved themselves the trouble.
Chris Evans and Bryan Greenberg are forgettable as the two buddies who dream up the score. Darius Miles seems to sleepwalk through the role of the jock. And Scarlett Johansson and Erika Christensen are wasted as the "alternative chick" and "beauty with a brain," respectively. Leonardo Nam arrives late to add a little flavor to the group as the goofy stoner, but is alternately humorous and tiresome.
The heist plot of the movie is simply dull. One of the students fortuitously has access to a key card that opens the building with the test answers, and once inside, it's just about ducking surveillance cameras and flashlight beams. The teen-angst portion consists of scenes such as an unlikely, mid-heist, rooftop discussion of what everyone wants to be when they grow up. But none of the characters are interesting enough for us to care what the answers are. There are a few laughs, mostly from the stoner, but there are far more moments that were clearly intended to be funny, but are decidedly not. And, for the love of God, do we really need yet another parody of the first fight scene in The Matrix. I expect more from a film that cites both Heat and The Breakfast Club as inspirations.
So, does love spring up between two of the polarized opposites? Does the idiot turn out to be the genius who doesn't apply himself? Do our heroes learn that cheating is wrong? If only SAT questions were as easily answered.
In the end, The Perfect Score does not earn its namesake. I certainly don't see its grade getting it into the Ivy League. Looks like community college for this one.