In I Love You, Beth Cooper, the affable, though geekish Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) lives the dream of millions of the high school disenfranchised and disaffected when he uses his valedictorian speech to tell his classmates exactly what he thinks of them. Rust, a young comedic actor and writer, is unabashed in his portrayal of the smart though socially awkward Denis who longs for the titular Ms. Cooper (Hayden Panettiere). Between Rust and Jack Carpenter as his best friend Rich, there’s enough comic zing in Beth Cooper to keep things watchable and laughable.

So it’s too bad then that the majority of I Love You, Beth Cooper is so achingly pedestrian and a general retread of about 90 per cent of the usual high school comedy clichés. A lot’s been made about Beth Cooper being the break out film role for Panettiere most famously of the TV superhero drama, Heroes, a program that’s hardly done her, or anyone else with the show, any justice lately. Playing another cheerleader, I’m sure Panettiere expected to make a lot of points playing the free-wheeling and kind of screwy Beth, but as for being the bad girl all the good guys want, her appeal’s still kind of difficult to nail down.

The script also swings wildly between trying to ground the story in some kind of dramatic structure and just letting it be a buck-wild teenage sex romp a la other recent films like Sex Drive or College. There’s a subplot about how Beth can’t even afford community college and she’s looking at a life where her best days are behind her, as well its mentioned more than once how she had an older brother who died when she was a toddler. Of course, that would explain her carpe diem lifestyle, but this is not the movie where subtle psychological complexities of characters are really supposed to be dwelled upon.

Additionally, there’s a scene with the school bully who corners Denis and tells him that his in-speech reference to the bully’s anger stemming from probable sexual abuse is, in fact, correct. The script tries to play cool with the implications, which is bizarre because how could this topic of conversation ever possibly be cool. But then Beth’s roid-raged driven boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts) shows up and starts threatening to tear Denis limb-from-limb. The implication with Kevin, a young soldier who seemed to have escaped a slow boat to Iraq or Afghanistan, is that he’s too hopped up on goof balls to know what’s what, and single-handedly destroying the faith in a country’s armed forces in a way not seen since Winger and Ziskey signed up.

Basically, Beth Cooper is well meaning, but it’s got all the usual teen movie high notes from the awkward sex & partying conversation with the parents to the stuff-shirts getting a lesson in reckless abandon from the easy-going hot chicks to the ambiguously gay best friend who obviously is despite his denials. What’s weird is that the movie kind of gets less funny as it goes along. There are really no surprises, from the gags to the plotline, and if the film is ever even mildly successful, it’s because of the cast. What’s funny is that Beth Cooper, directed by Chris Columbus, is being released within days of the new Harry Potter, the series that Columbus directed the first two editions for. How exactly you go from Potter to Cooper is rather beyond me, but its assured that by Wednesday this one will be all but forgotten. If it even makes it that long.