The Perfect Score (2004)

Review by All Movie Guide
Particularly with Oscar winners, breakout actors usually have to endure the release of that one final embarrassment they filmed prior to hitting the A-list. Fortunately for Scarlett Johansson, she could have done worse for the last film she shot before Lost in Translation punched her ticket. The Perfect Score is a cute enough little caper movie, in which a motley crew of teen types band together for the goal of getting into college and learning to be the best version of themselves. Although it's derivative in a lot of ways, at least The Perfect Score is aware of those ways -- at one point, Johansson's Francesca Curtis even describes them as having a Breakfast Club-style moment. Brian Robbins' film doesn't have the durability to define a generation like John Hughes' movies did, but it is a decent teen frame story with better than average character development. Without belaboring any particular character's baggage, the film touches on them all, providing sympathetic explanations for why each needs the answers to the SAT. The film also provides a pop culture outlet for the legitimate gripes famously leveled at the test over the years -- that it's racist and sexist, among others. Leonardo Nam's narration is at first annoying, but even this gets smoothed out over the course of the narrative, as his character becomes more three-dimensional than just the "Asian stoner guy." Also notable among the cast is NBA player Darius Miles, holding his own as a basketball star determined to get the scores necessary for college, even though he could probably go directly to the pros. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide