The Perfect Score ('04) 2004, Rated PG-13 Paramount

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A Paramount release. Writte by XXX; directed by XXX; starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Erika Christensen. Released to DVD on June 29, 2004.

THERE IS ONE MINOR TWIST IN THE PERFECT SCORE AND THAT ONE MINOR TWIST IS REVEALED IN THIS REVIEW.

            It’s been well over ten years since I took my SAT test.  If memory serves me correctly, I got a 1210 on it.  That was just high enough to get me into the college of my choice and just low enough to upset my parents.  Since then, the topic of my SAT score has never come up in conversation, nor has it influenced my life in any way that I can see.  If there was a bubble to fill in for the desired position of “film critic” on the test, I missed it.  I believe I filled in the bubble about wanting to be an office manager, which goes to show you that I either fell into film criticism while waiting for my dream position as an office manager to open up or that the ceiling on my dreams was entirely too low in high school.  With this in mind, it’s hard for me to ever get caught up into the anxiety that surrounds teenagers prior to taking their own SAT tests.  It just doesn’t matter all that much.  In this respect, The Perfect Score’s director, Brian Robbins (Varsity Blues), is behind the eight ball before his latest project even started. 

            Chris Evans stars in The Perfect Score as Kyle, a high school junior with a solid GPA who needs to score above a 1400 on his SAT to get into his dream school, Cornell University.  Getting a 1020 on his first try, Kyle is understandably concerned about this.  After all, he has no safety schools on his list of prospective colleges and isn’t particularly enamored of settling for Harvard or Vanderbilt.  So he recruits a group of friends and fellow students (Erika Christenson, Scarlett Johansson, Darius Miles, Leonardo Nam and Bryan Greenberg) to help him steal the answers to the SAT and, in turn, earn each of them the perfect score.

            There are numerous and bountiful script problems with The Perfect Score that aren’t supposed to worry anyone (Once Kyle’s gang has secure the answers to the SAT, just how do they plan to utilize them while actually taking the test?  Could they possibly commit that much information to memory?  Does anyone worry that with six perfect scores coming from the same test-taking facility that the SAT officials will assume something has been compromised?) and a host of off-putting “Don’t Do Drugs” messages that remain in the final cut despite the flow and pacing problems their inclusion creates.  However, in the bigger picture these are mere annoyances compared to the film’s outlandishly meandering focus.

            The first hour of The Perfect Score is that of a somewhat interesting teenage heist film.  Complete with the prerequisite character representation from a multitude of different ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds and cliques, Kyle’s gang begins to fine-tune their upcoming night of thievery.  Things have genuinely changed since Animal House.  No longer do students merely go dumpster diving to secure the answers to upcoming tests.  They plan diversions, bring lock cutters, rope ladders and take full advantage of the SAT office’s skylights.  Making the most out of each member’s individual talents and relations, the high schoolers break into the SAT corporate offices.  And then they break up into twos and begin sharing heartfelt stories of their youth and confiding in one another, ala The Breakfast Club.

            The change in direction during this scene is palpable.  One minute Kyle and his crew are committing a crime.  The very next minute, they have forgotten about this and start bonding while discussion their hopes and concerns about life after high school.  Watching this unfold, I thought I’d missed something.  How could the characters be so concerned about getting caught at one instant and then be joking around soon thereafter?

When the gang finally absconds with their precious SAT answers, the movie swiftly changes directions again.  As the six now-felons are heading to take their SATs, they begin questioning the relevancy of their actions the previous night.  This introspection leads to one girl standing up to her mother for the first time and one boy confronting another about his drug usage.  Ultimately, all six teens decide against using their ill-gotten gains and choose, for better or worse, to take the SAT on their own terms.  Watching this unfold, I thought I’d missed something.  With this new twist, every bit of character development that had preceded it was instantly wiped from the board.

It’s been nearly twenty years since the last of John Hughes’ trilogy of teen angst and uncertainty, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was released to American theaters.  Very few teen movies have approached the style and grace of Hughes’ best three works, though not for lack of trying.  Lacking any kind of precise focus, direction and a cohesive screenplay, The Perfect Score is merely another in a long line of teen films obviously inspired by Hughes’ projects that doesn’t come anywhere near to the entertainment level of the movies it is trying so hard to emulate. 

chris neumer

yes, it's true: This is actor Chris Evans' first teen movie since his performance in Not Another Teen Movie....