The Perfect Score
(Widescreen)
Picture: B Sound:
B Extras: B- Film:
C+
If you think that
Hollywood has run out of ideas, wait until you see the latest way for
filmmaking to attempt to be original again.
Before a direct copy would be made or even a remake/sequel, but that’s
just too easy, so now we have a new way of fooling the public by taking ideas
from a bunch of movies and blend it together into a melting pot, which in turn
becomes a ‘sorta’ original film. The Perfect Score is a recent example
of such and suffers dramatically from trying too hard to be too good.
So instead of making a
heist movie or a movie about troubled high school students, we have a movie
about troubled high school students that pull off a heist in order to become
better students. The SAT’s have been
established as a way of testing the knowledge of students in order to see how
they place and which college would be best for them, but can also determining
if college is at all in their future.
Much pressure is placed on students each year as the SAT’s are underway
determining the future of many high school students. Most people hate the SAT’s and the film makes some quick
observations in the beginning about how unfair they can be as well as how the
criteria of the SAT is slightly skewed towards those strong in either math or
English, as if any other subject does not count. Then the remainder of the film is spent examining a few students
who decide that to improve their lives they should steal the SAT answer
book.
The film combines a lot of
fresh talent for its cast of deviants; most of them are newer to the big screen
with exception of the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson, who was a surprise in this
film, especially after her recent successes.
She has made a good mark in her career by doing such films as The Man Who Wasn’t There with the Coen
Brothers, and more recently in Lost in
Translation and The Girl With the
Pearl Earring, but what was she thinking becoming involved with this
film? Each student in the film has
different motivation for wanting to steal the answers, but it all comes down to
the simple fact that they are not comfortable with who they are and need to
rely on a criminal act in order to better themselves. Technically there is a few different versions to the SAT test,
which would make it impossible to get one answer to key in order to cheat, I
guess the people that came up with the test realized that there might be teens
out there willing to pull off a heist to steal an answer copy.
The film borders on comedy
at times with some comic relief in the strangest of places, probably just to
remind us that we are not to take this so serious to begin with. What differentiates a teen comedy like this
and the ones from the 80’s is the simple fact that they were not trying to be
much more than they were. They knew
that they were silly, but a film like this believes in itself a little too much
and its ego is written all over.
From a presentation
standpoint The Perfect Score
receives the standard treatment of a 1.85 X 1 anamorphic transfer and Dolby
Digital 5.1 audio mix. Paramount has a
knack for keeping their DVD’s pretty simple in technical terms without going
the extra mile to do High Definition or DTS, but what the film lacks in
superior quality it makes up for in extras.
First we have a commentary
track with director Brian Robbins and screenplay writer Mark Schwahn, which
provides lots of insight into how the film came about and certain production
points as well. It would have been nice
to have certain members of the cast partake on the commentary as well, but no
such luck here. There is a ‘making of’
segment as well, which does offer more from the cast and is not as in-depth as
some may like, but informative just the same.
The film is rated PG-13, which is pretty much the age level that this
film will pertain to, since at that point in time most kids are still
vulnerable to such silliness.
- Nate Goss
