Acclaimed exotic dancer-turned-scriptwriter Diablo Cody had a lot riding on her shoulders. After taking home a trophy at the 2008 Academy Awards for penning Juno, Cody became the new it-girl of the indie, offbeat comedy world. With her sophomore attempt, she makes a concerted effort with director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux) and leads Megan Fox (Transformers) and Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls) to ignite Jennifer's Body with the same spark that ignited Juno. Despite some merits to its name - a killer script and Fox being named No. 2 on the "2009 'Maxim' Hot 100" - Jennifer's Body is not a total hit.
The film centers on Jennifer Check (Fox), a character with whom we are all too familiar. Despite her infinite beauty and popularity, she is painfully insecure and, as a result, manipulates and preys on her less genetically gifted friends for a confidence boost. But when a small-time, alternative, man-makeup-wearing band kidnaps Jennifer as a sacrifice to Satan to score a record deal and fame - yes, this really happens - she goes from mere adolescence evil to full-on, flesh-eating, demon evil. Now preying on hopeless and unsuspecting boys, Jennifer creates her virtual buffet of man using her irresistible physical assets, and it is up to her "best friend" Needy Lesnicky (Seyfried) to find a way to stop her.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past two years, you know Megan Fox is smokin'. So smokin', in fact, that a few dozen popular male news sites banded together to create a Megan Fox media blackout day Aug. 4 to combat her overexposure. This very overexposure creates perhaps the "fatal" flaw in the film. Full of satire regarding teenage sexual desires, the ridiculous, backbiting conventions of the high school world and just basic pop culture, the film's script is literally coursing with sexual charge. Fox - who has made a career out of exploiting her own sexuality - is head of the class in this hot mess of sex, lies and flesh consumption as Jennifer. Her own history of shameless and gratuitous dirty banter in the press, however, makes her casting seem much more like another lame, "look-how-hot-I-am" publicity vehicle than it does a wise, artistic choice. This nagging suspicion makes it incredibly difficult - if not impossible -
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