It’s not a huge surprise to me that Chris Columbus directed the movie, based shockingly enough on the NOVEL, I Love You Beth Cooper, because it watches almost exactly like EVERY JOHN HUGHES MOVIE EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

This one features Denis Cooverman, brilliant boy-child who hangs around with a deeply closeted homosexual who’s trying desperately to push his buddy into making something a little more interesting out of his life than his patently awesome GPA.  Thus, in a spate of recklessness, Cooverman hijacks his own valedictory speech with a rambling screed in which he tells everybody EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE.  The rich stuck up girl is called stuck up.  The bully is called a bully.

And Denis himself, meanwhile, professes his love for wild child cheerleader Britney Allen.  Wait, no…it’s Claire Bennet.  NO…one more time…BETH COOPER.  Yeah, that’s it.  That’s her cheerleader persona of the moment.

Yes, the more the names change the more Hayden Panettiere‘s part stays exactly the same.  Once again she’ll be playing a cheerleader.  Though she will get to have some fun here as Denis discovers that Beth is not what he thought she was, and that she actually has some secret depth to her character that’s actually still pretty predictable.

Yes, this is high school all over again, as most of the nerds wished it would be.  Where the school bully just wants a hug, and when he gets one, he will spring to your defense against a psychotic coked-up army private who’s dating the girl of your dreams.  Where your best friend is a master of towel-snapping.  Where you can spend the entire night driving around with the girl of your dreams and her two hot friends and never ONCE even vaguely get tired.

Where, for once, YOU get the girl….

But anyway!  Cheap schmaltzy maudlin sentiment aside, yes, I Love You Beth Cooper is really just an idealized stab at our wallets via our high school memories, but still, it’s fun in its own way.  It’s silly.  It doesn’t take itself seriously.  It teaches a great lesson most of us should have learned ten, twenty years ago about books and covers.  Sure, it’s as predictable as the results of a long distance horse race between Secretariat and a helicopter (Secretariat loses), but still, it’ll warm the cockles of the old heart and pluck at all the relevant strings.

I actually went on Facebook looking for old high school buddies after finishing this.

The Screenhead Ten Scale can’t believe I was suckered into this syrupy little fantasy but has no choice to follow my lead and hand over a six out of ten.  It does what it set out to do, though it probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place.