Just another night

This film delivers the base expectations of a Disney movie about prom. A happy ending, first of all. A geeky guy who, despite his best efforts, can't seem to win, but ultimately does. The seemingly perfect couple that falls apart at the seams. The main character who deserves never-ending happiness and love, but doesn't quite receive her hard-earned reward until the end of the movie. Check, check and check. This movie is nothing if not predictable.

There are several good laughs to be had along the way. Joe Adler, a new actor to the Disney scene, has a strong comic presence in his role as a dazed and loopy character named Rolo. Ali Gomez, played by newcomer Janelle Ortiz, also has a strong comical performance in her obvious but misguided interest inRolo's love life.

However, the main character, Nova Prescott, played by Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights) was disappointing. Mechanical throughout most of the movie, she delivers her lines with all the predictability and canned emotion of a "Gossip Girl" episode. It frequently stilted the plausibility of her romance with the stubbly brooding bad boy, Jesse Richter, played by newcomer Thomas McDonell. McDonell, with his credible scowls, plays a character too cool for school and at times seems too good for his role. However, he embodies perfection at delivering the cliche  lines of the other-side-of-the-tracks bad boy. One of the strikingly strange features in the movie was the range of the actors' physical attributes. Freshman Lucas Arnaz, played by newcomer Nolan Sotillo, and Simone Daniels, played by Danielle Campbell (The Poker House), looked like middle schoolers, while "it" seniors Tyler Barso, played by DeVaughn Nixon (Monster Heroes), and JordanLundley, played by newcomer Kylie Bunbury, look ready to grace the covers of Maxim and GQ. This makes it all the more creepy when sports star Tyler decides to go for the sweet-faced and flirtatious Simone.

One of this movie's biggest issues, keeping it from being at least substantive enough to measure up to, say, Mean Girls status, is the amount of half-baked plot lines. There are so many sub-plots that only the main storyline between Nova and Jesse really feels thoroughly fleshed out, leaving a bunch of half-hearted wrapped-up plots sadly in the dust. The structure is reminiscent of a poorly done Love Actually-esque film executed for the preteen crowd. Of course, another factor in the film's less-than-satisfying quality is the predictability — the conflicts between the together-since-third-grade couple who is about to find out earth-shattering news, the nerd with the does-she-exist? prom date, the geek who can't get a date to prom and, of course, the perfect good girl who falls for the wrong guy, are all resolved with mind-numbing ease.

Overall, this is the kind of mindless teen-queen brain candy I might pop in the DVD player on a low-key Friday night, but unless I was really craving some artery-clogging popcorn butter, I'd skip paying for the theater ticket.