3 out of 4 critics don't like Jennifer's Body...

 

Megan Fox, on the other hand, is perfectly fine.

There was a fair amount of buzz out and about re: Jennifer's Body, the latest in America's endless stream of multiple-murder teen horror flicks. This time, it was enlivened by the presence of ultrasupermegahottie Megan Fox in the title role and screenwriter Diablo Cody, of Juno fame. The basic premise sounded cool, too: gorgeous, popular cheerleader Jennifer is lured into the forest and assaulted by the high school football team (or most of it), but doesn't die: she comes back inhabited by a shapeshifting demon with needle-sharp teeth, bent on revenge. Or is it ... justice?

...Unfortunately, the final mishmash -- commonly described as a cross between Mean Girls and I Know What You Did Last Summer -- hasn't gotten a whole lot of love from critics or viewers. About two out of three of the reviewers didn't care for it. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star says, "Jennifer's Body comes across as Diablo Cody lite, something she seems to have dashed off in-between talk show appearances and updating her MySpace page with her latest caustic witticisms." (Oooh, jealous much?) Ty Burr of the Boston Globe observes, "Jennifer's Body falls into the dispiriting category of dumb movies made by smart people, in this case a glibly clever writer and a talented director who think a few wisecracks are enough to subvert the teen horror genre." Rafer Guzman of Newsday says it best: "Last year, a ... horror flick called Teeth, about a ... girl who had incisors where she shouldn't, covered this territory with more creativity, complexity and humor. Jennifer's Body, for all its promise, could use some of that bite." And even the critics who give it a luke-warm thumb's up damned it with faint praise, using words like, "common, doesn't deliver, serviceable" while excusing it as a send-up, an allegory about women's empowerment, or just "one of those movies that you'll like if you like this sort of movie." Yeah, that's why we go to see horror movies: to see something really, really serviceable.

Probably the most interesting thing about Jennifer's Body is what's going on around it -- the growing backlash concerning Megan Fox's alleged brains and bad attitude, jealousy or skepticism about Cody Diablo as a celebrity screenwriter. Seems like there's more entertainment to be had reading the jibes and counter-jibes at Fox from anonymous Transformers crew members, or even well-reasoned contemplations of the life of times of Ms. Diablo, like Desson Thomson's recent piece in The Wrap.