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Bryan Greenberg (Matty), Scarlett Johansson (Francesca) and Chris Evans (Kyle) star in “The

“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