The bandwagon is strolling through the movie world, and this time it’s full of movies for high school kids about high school kids.

The latest flick to climb aboard is “Jawbreaker.” But it seems to have been run over a few times before it jumped on the wagon.

With phrases like “rule the school” and “I made you, and I can break you,” the film is definitely a lame example of an adult trying to relate to a younger generation.

The script makes it that much more unbelievable, and it makes you wonder if anyone really talks like that.

“Jawbreaker” stars Rose McGowan as Courtney Shane, Rebecca Gayheart (the Noxema girl) as Julie Freeman and Julie Benz as Marcie Fox (who calls herself Foxxy).

They are all friends and supposedly the most popular girls in school, even though they always walk and sit by themselves and act snobbishly toward everyone else.

The three seniors decide to play a prank on their other best friend, Liz Purr, on her 17th birthday (who turns 17 their senior year?). The plan is to kidnap Liz and take her to school in her underwear after stuffing her face with pancakes.

Such nice friends.

But when they get to the pancake place, they find the giant jawbreaker Courtney shoved in Liz’s mouth to keep her quiet during the kidnapping accidentally got stuck in Liz’s throat and choked her to death.

This part is the highlight of the movie — the makeup artist did a fine job showing Liz in her state of death with the jawbreaker stuck in her throat. Yum.

Courtney, the evil one, decides covering up the death and making up a false story is the best way to deal with the situation. Foxxy, the follower, agrees. And Julie, the one with a conscience, wants to tell the truth but is threatened by Courtney to have the blame put on her.

Everything is running smoothly for the girls until the school nerd, Fern Mayo (Judy Evans Greer), shows up to deliver homework and ends up seeing and overhearing the girls talking about everything.

In order to keep Fern quiet, Courtney offers to make her “popular.” Fern hesitantly accepts and is turned into Vylette, the school’s newest hottie.

As time goes on, Julie decides she wants to tell the truth, and everyone involved gets tangled up in a web of lies and backstabbing.

A few sub-plots are thrown in but don’t fully develop. The plots end up adding nothing but distraction along with a disgusting and pointless cameo appearance by Marylin Manson, McGowan’s real-life boyfriend.

The cast was basically a waste of beautiful women. McGowan and Gayheart have put forth better performances in past films, and Benz and Greer could have done more with their characters.

Writer/director Darren Stein falls a few steps short of successfully getting through to the younger audience. His cast had potential, but he must not have known it since all of the characters are written very dull.

Along with the sleazy outfits this film provides, it instills in you a fear of the giant jawbreaker.

1 star out of five

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Kyle Moss is a freshman in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.