What does SAT stand for these days? This film opens by positing that SAT stands for Suck Ass Test. In truth, SAT stands for absolutely nothing. ETS, the Educational Testing Service, which governs the lives of every single hopeful person on the globe who wishes to attend a university in the U.S. recently “rebranded” SAT from Scholastic Aptitude Test to just SAT. Whatever it means, this test standing between Kyle (Chris Evans) and his dream of architecture school at Cornell University. Like any self-centered, upper middle-class kid in post-modern America would, Kyle decides to steal the answers to the SAT (like studying, maybe, is so difficult? Yeah, the SAT is racially biased, yeah, the SAT is gender biased, yeah, the SAT is biased toward kids who live in urban areas. Get over it. We all had to take it.)
This film, brought to us by the fumble-fingered team of Michael Tollin and Brian Robbins, who takes directing duties this time around, brings together a band of misfits right out of teen-movie central casting which includes Kyle’s best friend Matty (Bryan Greenberg in probably the most realized performance in the film) who only wants to join his girlfriend at the University of Maryland (we’re given quite clear indicators, even if Matty doesn’t want to believe them, that she has already moved on), school basketball star Desmond (Darius Miles) who’d really rather be going pro but just doesn’t have the game for it (what he does have is a mother with her head screwed on straight who is pushing him to get an education and not just rely on his athletic talents), the salutatorian Anna (Erika Christensen in a role clearly meant for Julia Stiles five years ago; Christensen even resembles a young Stiles) who is test phobic and bone tired of living up to every one of her parents’ expectations, Francesa (Scarlett Johansson gone goth in a pre “Lost In Translation” role) whose Daddy just happens to own the building where the regional ETS office is located, and Roy (Leonardo Nam) our resident underachiever, stoner, computer geek, and narrator.
What saves this film from being a total mess is the performances of the cast. While flat in spots, Evans’ performance as Kyle and Miles’ performance as Desmond most notably, each of the actors manages to bring a certain spark to the standard role he or she has been given. This movie isn’t really about the SAT, it isn’t about following your dream, it isn’t about the bonding that happens during the actual theft. This movie is about finding yourself. For all the mouthing about how stealing the answers is justified because “they tell us to be individuals and then they want to test us all the same to determine our futures” what each of the characters finds is that if you follow your heart you know what is right. Don’t over think, just be and everything will be OK. If that means breaking the rules sometimes, like staying out after curfew or ratting your stoner buddy out to your Mom, fine; if that means following the rules and doing what’s expected of you, that’s fine too.
This film is a twinkie, something light to eat when you need a bit of a sugar buzz. Cute, but not challenging, thus, 2.5 out of 5. 
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