As stupid as you think it is.

Juno wasn’t nearly the biting cultural satire it thought it
was, but it was a relative masterpiece compared to screenwriter Diablo
Cody’s second effort, Jennifer’s Body. It might be a whole lot
easier to like this film if it didn’t spend so much time trying to
prove how clever it is. The humor isn’t all that distinctive from, say,
that of Scary Movie 3 (or 1 or 2 or whatever),
only here we get slightly showier cultural references, most of which
seem to have arrived at least a few years too late (“A rumor? It’s
true; it’s on the Wikipedia!” or “I can handle myself. I’ve been using
the Bowflex”).

Needy (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer (Megan Fox) are totally Best
Friends Forever, attending high school in small-town Devil’s Kettle.
Needy is the sensible, moralizing one with glasses and a steady
boyfriend. Jennifer is the popular, vapid one with no feelings (“He
thinks he’s cute enough for me. That’s why he’s in retard math”). It’s
Friday night or something, and Jennifer drags Needy along to Melody
Lane, the town hot spot/shit hole, where Low Shoulder, a crappy band
from “the city” is playing. After Jennifer unsurprisingly throws
herself at the band members, the bar catches fire mid-set and she
unsurprisingly ends up in their van. Flash to Needy’s place later that
night, where Jennifer unsurprisingly shows up covered in blood and
then, relatively surprisingly, devours a rotisserie chicken from the
fridge. A series of brutal murders ensues, and the film tries to retain
interest via predictable one-liners and obvious
turns-of-event—all of which should work fine, this being a parody
and all, but due to glaring unoriginality on multiple levels, the trick
grows tiresome 30 or so minutes in, if not sooner, and with such lesser
actors, we’re quickly enlightened as to why Juno was more
annoying than funny. recommended

Grant Brissey covered everything from hard news and technology, to music, film, and visual arts during his time working for The Stranger. Grant's work has also appeared at Geekwire, and in Billboard,...

8 replies on “<i>Jennifer’s Body</i>: No Surprises”

  2. @1: Seriously? I thought everyone hated that movie. Sorry, I did think it was entertaining, but very soon after the movie got an Oscar nom, nobody wasted any time coming out talking about how much smarter they are in hating Juno. It basically became shorthand for how you’re essentially more hip than a hipster.

    I hope the new hating-on-Juno is hating on Juno-haters.

  3. I thought Juno had promise, but more in the plot then in the dialogue, which was grating. So I hoped United States of Tara was a sign Cody was developing in the better direction, but from what I’ve heard of Jennifer’s Body, it seems not.

  4. Diablo Cody is kind of stylistically consistent, so I don’t see why anyone would hold her accountable for their own expectations of a good/non-annoying/clever movie.

  6. FYI Jennifer CAN’T EAT that rotisserie chicken that Needy’s mom AMY FUCKING SEDARIS bought at Boston Market because like, she’s a succubus and can’t eat anything other than raw flesh.
    Also, Beaver from Veronica Mars who’s been playing a teenager for at least a decade pops up as a total hot topic cliche that this movie was marketed for.

    Anyone who didn’t like Idle Hands should not be reviewing this movie.

    I loved it!

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