Latex Movie Review - The Perfect Score

It was the latex catsuit that never materialized. Despite many reports from the set of Iron Man 2 of Scarlett Johansson mesmerizing the cast and crew with her tight latex catsuit, when the film was released the catsuit was Lycra. What a disappointment considering that the character in Marvel Comics is always costumed in either leather or some other tight shiny fabric assumed to be latex. But the decision was made that they wanted Black Widow's costume to be more realistic than the comic book counterpart. Discussion of the catsuit letdown inevitably lead to tales of an urban legend. Someone swore that Scarlett did wear a catsuit in one of her earlier movies. When that movie was identified as The Perfect Score I decided I would have to see it for myself.

Why had I never seen The Perfect Score before? Good reason. One, it was produced by MTV Films. With exception to anomalies like Napoleon Dynamite and Election, the majority of MTV films were garbage. Another reason, it came out a the same time as Catch That Kid which had the similar premise of teenagers pulling a heist. Two of the same films released at the same time had the effect of canceling each other out. Having now watched the movie I can now tell you that I had good reason not to have seen it when it was originally released. Supposedly a comedy, the jokes all fall flat. The closest thing to funny in this movie is Leonard Nam who plays the Asian stoner student named Roy. An outstanding comedic performance that is hobbled by bad material. On the flip side is the film's worst performance from Darius Miles as the school's star basketball player Desmond Rhodes. Fortunately Darius had an actual career as a pro basketball player to fall back on. Chris Evans who wold go on to success as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies plays Kyle, a student so traumatized by his low SAT score that he concocts a scheme with his friend Matty ( Bryan Greenberg ) to steal the answer key sheet to the scheduled re-test from the SAT headquarters. Joining him on the heist is the aforementioned school jock and stoner, the school valedictorian Anna Ross ( Erika Christensen ), and the daughter of the executive in charge of the SATs Francesca Curtis ( Scarlett Johansson ) who is so angry at her father dating bimbos after divorcing her mother that she agrees to help Kyle and the others break into the SAT building.

Aside from trying to be a comedy The Perfect Score attempts to be social commentary on how unfair the standardized aptitude tests are. The first half of the movie has characters citing facts and figures to the point where it becomes overtly preachy. This approach is abandoned in the second half of the movie when the actual break in and heist takes place. Instead screenplay writers Mark Schwahn, Marc Hyman and Jon Zack decide to channel The Breakfast Club in style and form with a bit of Ferris Bueller's Day Off thrown in. Perhaps part of the blame should go to director Brian Robbins who MTV borrowed from sister network Nickelodeon who offers the movie not one iota of pizazz. And yet for what was just a lackluster MTV produced potboiler The Perfect Score does have some charm, mostly due to cast members Evans, Nam, Greenberg and Johansson giving performances that this film does not deserve. The end result is characters you grow fond of despite the unrealistic dialog. The end result is just passable entertainment.

THE SCENE:
OK. The whole reason for watching this movie was talk of a scene with Scarlett wearing a leather or latex catsuit. It turns out these are false memories. The moment in question has Scarlett re-enacting part of The Matrix. But while Carrie Ann-Moss did wear different styles of catsuits as Trinity in The Matrix, the costume that Scarlett actually wears is a combination of leather pants and zipped up leather jacket, not an actual catsuit. The scene is found at 42 minutes into the movie and lasts no more than 30 seconds. Kyle is planning the heist while the others listen and imagine different scenarios. When Scarlett's character is told that she will have to sneak in past the guards she imagines herself as a Trinity like character who has just been cornered by security guards. And just like in The Matrix she is able to do all sorts of tricks to evade capture and kick the guard's butts. The scene actually gets pretty violent as Scarlett's Trinity character grabs the gun in the hand of one of the guards and shoots to death the other two. The scene is too brief and I do not know how much of what we see is actually Scarlett and how much was a stunt double, so I would not recommend seeking this movie out unless you are absolutely desperate to see Scarlett wearing leather in a movie. Fortunately Scarlett is worth watching in this movie, especially for her semi-schoolgirl outfit and a later shirt that is cut to show off her cleavage. There is even an unnecessary shot of her panties early on in the movie. As for fetish style outfits the closest this movie offers other than the Trinity scene is her briefly wearing a brown leather jacket 6 minutes into the film, a black barely shiny black leather jacket at 29 minutes, and the jacket again at 45 minutes accompanied by the cleavage shirt and a pair of thigh high leather boots. Erika Christensen's contribution is at 1 hour 22 minutes where she is briefly seen wearing a red leather jacket.