Blu-ray Review I Love You, Beth Cooper
Directed by: Chris Columbus Cast: Paul Rust, Hayden Panettiere, Jack Carpenter, Lauren Storm, Lauren London Running Time: 1 hr 40 mins Rating: PG-13 Due Out: November 3, 2009
PLOT: A geeky valedictorian (Rust) gets the cojones to tell the most popular girl in school (Panettiere) that he has always loved her. What follows is a night they'll never forget.
WHO'S IT FOR? Enjoying Hayden Panettiere would help when trying to watch this movie. This is the type of high school movie for those who thought John Tucker Must Die deserved a less brutal fate.
MOVIE:
It is a feat for a film to make its title character so undesirable, but Beth Cooper doesn’t seem to have much difficulty in doing a lot of things wrong. The film is very set on how we should feel about Hayden Panettiere’s character – she’s a goddess on earth, the firecracker in our lives that we can attain if we just do something really zany like tell her we love her during our graduation speech. But it’s difficult to share such feelings when she is kind of mean, self-important, and even a bad driver. Beth Cooper has a complicated history with boys who didn’t “see her for who she was.” This is unfortunate yes, but are we supposed to hop on the pity parade just because she’s apparently “hot”?
As far as antiheroes go, Paul Rust’s bumbling Denis Cooverman isn’t that much more of an improvement, never mind someone possible to recognize from our own high school experiences. Like much of everything else in the film, Cooverman is a dream concocted by people detached from their high school years who can only build characters off of stereotypes that certainly don’t work even in goofier portrayals of the “golden years.” Cooverman is awkward sure, but he’s also creepy. The film gives him too much of a pass for having a poster of Beth Cooper directly above his bed, and believes too much that someone would actually say the unnecessary dorky things spew out of his mouth.
One can recognize that the creators were shooting for a slapstick-y version of high school, but because the one-liners aren’t funny and the exaggerated physical humor is overdone, one hardly ever experiences a laughing result of such humor. I was amused by a sequence that involves dueling with wet towels, but possibly because it was the only time that any of the movie’s desperate references to much more notable films actually worked.
As far as fun goes for I Love You, Beth Cooper, there’s little to be had. The film isn’t the emptiest foray into loving an empty woman, but Beth Cooper shouldn't pride itself on being a stupendous succubus of your time.
MOVIE SCORE: 3/10
EXTRAS
Alternate Ending - Yes, this is actually a different ending. It’s roughly five minutes of one final confrontation between Cooverman and Cooper’s old boyfriend. It would have made the film slightly more wacky, but the predicament, which has Cooverman cornered by the three roided-up army dudes, is all the same.
Peanut Butter Toast - It must be this mix of courage and stupidity that allows someone to say "I love you, Beth Cooper," at their graduation. In this brief home video, Paul Rust sings an improvised song about peanut butter toast, while making and eating one himself. I am convinced Quentin Tarantino saw this and immediately gave Rust his part in Inglourious Basterds.
We Are All Different, But That's A Good Thing - Cast members tell of the natural friendships that were made on set, with everyone seeming to credit each other as “really funny” or “interesting.” All of the leads share the back stories they created for their characters per request of director Columbus, but this information isn’t very obvious in the movie and hearing such information doesn’t make any part of the movie any more endearing. If anything, it shows that maybe these kids did do some homework.
OTHER EXTRAS:
Deleted Scenes I Love You, Larry Doyle Fox Movie Channel Presents "In Character" with Paul Rust Fox Movie Channel Presents "In Character" with Hayden Panettiere Trailers
EXTRAS SCORE: 6/10
OVERALL
The whole package of I Love You, Beth Cooper attempts to redeem itself by loading its Blu-Ray with a decent amount of extras that will at least keep the fans interested. Those who enjoyed watching the film and/or the cast will be happy to see that the special features focus primarily on the lead actors of the movie, with decent-sized servings of extra Rust or Panettiere.
If you haven’t been tricked into seeing I Love You, Beth Cooper already, it’s probably a sign from the movie gods that a pairing between you and this flick is just not meant to be. If a lame movie doesn’t deter you from this Blu-Ray, let me quote the back synopsis, which stands as a sad moment for all of movie advertising; “…You’ll lol as Denis tries to keep up with Beth.” A film that uses the word “lol” to catch the eye of an audience? That’s just awful.
FINAL SCORE: 4/10