"Easy A" wastes Emma Stone on throwaway story

If you've seen trailers for the new comedy "Easy A," you may think it is some kind of charming retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter." Let me dispel that notion right off the bat. "Easy A" has about as much to do with Hawthorne as "Ernest Goes to Camp" had to do with "Walden."

The movie starts Emma Stone as Olive Pendergast, a non-descript unpopular high school girl who becomes the center of attention after a rumor spreads that she has lost her virginity.

She decides to capitalize on this by allowing men to claim they have slept with her in exchange for cash, gift cards, or even a Bath and Body Works coupon.

She takes things further by beginning to dress in a manner befitting her reputation and sews her own "scarlet letter" A's on every shirt she owns.

Things inevitably spiral out of control, and Emma has to make some tough decisions about how she wants to be seen by her peers.

Let's start with the good news. Emma Stone is a genuinely charming actress and she has been long overdue for a starring role in a major movie. Her comic timing is impeccable, and she is a joy to see on screen.

Some of the grownups in the movie also steal the show, especially Olive's parents, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. As the liberal and super-understanding parents we all wish we had growing up, the pair pepper the film with some of the best lines in the movie.

Now for the bad news. It's clear from almost the beginning what "Easy A" wants to be: a John Hughes movie. It references "Sixteen Candles," "Say Anything," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club" with regularity, and even points out when it's doing something that would be in one of those movies, like the pointless music number toward the end.

The trouble with doing that is it automatically reminds you of those older, better films. It's like when people on "American Idol" sing Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston songs. They're not going to be better, so why even invite the comparison?

Not every adult shines quite so well as Olive's parents either. The teachers in the film, Thomas Haden Church, Malcolm McDowell, and Lisa Kudrow all fall pretty flat as one-note-jokes of characters.

Also, a lot of the dialogue seems much more concerned with being hip and quotable than informative and story-driving. The characters tend to take turns participating in a "who can come up with the most preteen-friendly one-liner" contest at the expense of any kind of real communication. In some ways, "Easy A" is what a raunchy teen comedy would be like if it was written by the staff of "Hannah Montana."

The movie also takes a lot of cheap shots at religion. The chief antagonist is Marianne Bryant (played by "She's the Man" start and "All That" alum Amanda Bynes), the leader of the school pack of "Jesus freaks" who spends the entire movie judging Olive and speaking trite platitudes about salvation and damnation.

As she and her group are the only representation of religion in the movie, essentially all of Christianity is lumped in as a stereotyped bunch of unsympathetic bigots, which seems extremely unfair. I'm not a particularly religious person, and even I was offended by the way Christianity was dragged through the mud in "Easy A."

In the end, I came to the conclusion that this movie was really not meant for me. This was confirmed when the gaggle of 13-year-old girls to my right screamed "Best movie ever!" as the credits rolled. Maybe they saw something I didn't, but to me, "Easy A" was a lightweight, brainless comedy that wasted the talents of a rising star.

I hoped that Ms. Stone's next project would be something that might use her more effectively, but a quick look at the Internet Movie Database shows her next movie is called "Friends With Benefits." Yikes.