How to Watch: “I Love You, Beth Cooper”

Step 1: Run far away from this one. The woefully unfunny I Love You, Beth Cooper is a teen sex comedy’s worst enemy.

Step 2: If you must see it, check off every cliché in the book. The geeky high schooler (Paul Rust) who pines for the titular popular cheerleader (Hayden Panetierre) and – after being spurred on by his quirky, could-be-gay best friend (Jack Carpenter) – tells her so during his graduation speech. Check. Geeky guy’s geeky dad (Alan Ruck) gives advice to seize the day (yes, that happens). Check. The popular girl, who at first just wants to mess with the guy, decides he’s kinda cute. Check. The two (and their friends) spend one night together on the run from homicidal boyfriends, raccoons and other such nonsense, drinking and driving, talking about Spider-Man underwear and sex – and finding out you can’t judge a book by its cover. Check. Roll eyes and wish for it to be over soon. Check and doubled checked.

Step 3: Tell Hayden Panetierre it’s time to STOP BEING A CHEERLEADER. Even for her, this has got to be embarrassing at this point.

Step 4: Hope the rest of the cast isn’t too tainted by the awfulness of this movie to find other jobs.

Step 5: Wonder out loud: “What were they thinking?” It’s hard enough to make a decent teen comedy these days that’s original and entertaining. Last year’s Sex Drive managed to defy the genre; it was refreshingly hilarious and yet comfortably familiar. But Beth Cooper is just aggressively bad, relying on, I guess, Panetierre’s supposed cache. Has anyone told her Heroes isn’t very good anymore, either?

Level of difficulty in watching I Love You, Beth Cooper: Pretty damn hard. If you’ve just crawled out from under a rock and had never seen any other movie of its ilk before, then maybe you’d like it. Maybe.