“The Perfect Score” Directed by Brian
Robbins Paramount Pictures
Throughout “The Perfect Score,” characters refer to
the Scholastic Aptitude Test, better known as the SAT, by
rearranging the famous acronym to describe what the test is to
them. One calls it “sick and twisted” while another
refers to it as the “suck-ass test.” However, none of
the acronyms describe the movie itself, an exhausting blend of
young actors (or, in Darius Miles’ case, basketball players)
competing against both the College Board and each other’s
punch lines. In short, they’re all selfish and trite. But
that doesn’t mean they’re not appealing. MTV Films has
made a name for itself in producing movies about kids who take
drastic measures to get into college, including “Varsity
Blues” (1999), also directed by Brian Robbins, and
“Orange County” (2002). In a way, “The Perfect
Score” forms a fitting conclusion to a series of films about
testing. “The Perfect Score,” in which a group of six
mismatched high school students, each for their own reasons, decide
to steal the answers to the SAT, isn’t so much a bad movie as
it is one that didn’t take the time to think itself out.
It’s more concerned with making enough jokes to fill its
short running time than it is with developing story and theme. To
critique the acting in the movie, most notably done by the
film’s women, Scarlett Johansson and Erika Christensen, would
be equivalent to judging students by their SAT scores alone: It
only creates a false representation of the work, or student, as a
whole. Much more accurate would be to consider how the actors play
into the work as a whole, namely that they speak and talk. And
surprisingly enough, sometimes their words raise interesting
questions about the SAT, as well as the heavy influence that
standardized tests have come to have on public education in the
United States. However, such issues are only brought up as rants in
the first third of the film, and instead of expanding and
considering the long-term effects such trends will have on
education, the characters simply amuse themselves. When Desmond
(Miles) comments that the SAT is racist and was created by rich
white people at the expense of everyone else, Roy (Leonardo Nam) is
quick to explain his theory that middle-class Asian girls perform
the best on the test. Desmond’s point may be valid, but the
film isn’t interested in supporting a theory. The film also
isn’t very interested in being a film, which is perhaps its
biggest problem. Seemingly content to supply a few laughs (some
genuine, some with a twinge of sarcasm) without developing much of
a story, “The Perfect Score” is harmless enough as long
as it doesn’t pretend to be more than what it is: superfluous
among trash. – Jake Tracer