The New Guy

For its first twenty minutes or so, this big-geek-on-campus comedy gets by on a semi-fresh twist of tiresome teen clique themes and a well-cast lead. DJ Qualls--the 98-pound walking weakling punchline from 2000's Road Trip--plays a bottom-of-the-food-chain bully magnet who changes high schools and reinvents himself as a wiry, über-cool bad ass. But as soon as the kid gets comfortable with his new stud status (insert stock scenes of trampy cheerleaders here) and we've seen Qualls' entire comical cool-jerk repertoire, the movie plumb runs out of ideas and putters along on fumes until the closing credits. Lazy and simplistic, when The New Guy isn't beating long-dead genre horses (Qualls feels guilty about dissing his "real" friends for the in-crowd), it's a blender-edited mish-mosh of abridged plot points--all premise and no follow-through. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: Presented widescreeen and full-screen, the DVD extras here are otherwise skimpy--namely, a trailer and the music video "I'm Just a Kid," by Simple Plan and featuring cast members DJ Qualls and Eliza Dushku. Bottom line: little in the way of extras for little in the way of a motion picture making.] (R. Blackwelder)