Crude, charmless "I Love You, Beth Cooper" is no valentine

Oh, to have teenage kids just so I could forbid them to see "I Love You, Beth Cooper."

A miscast and misjudged graduation-night comedy, "Cooper" occasionally — only occasionally — wanders into "harmless." Much of the time it's sending bad messages about, oh, driving without your lights on after dark, using sex to score beer and letting peer pressure determine your sexuality.

Let's state emphatically that America's teens are too smart to do most of those things. Let's also state they probably won't find much to laugh at in this emphatically unfunny comedy from the guy who owes his career to "Home Alone" — Chris Columbus.

Paul Rust is the charmless, uncharismatic lead, Dennis, a nerd who uses his valedictory speech to tell his classmates what he really thinks of them. And that girl he has lusted for but never ever spoken to? She (Hayden Panettiere) gets his punch line.

"I love you, Beth Cooper."

She is flattered, and over the course of a long and tedious graduation night, Dennis and his pal Rich (Jack Carpenter), whom he outed in his speech, follow Beth and "The Trinity" (Lauren London and the hilarious Lauren Storm) as Beth drives her Yaris like a long-lost Andretti, flees her maniacal military boyfriend and knocks herself off the pedestal Dennis put her on.

The reason this was made was to escort young Panettiere from "cutie" to "hottie." But did they need the lame cocaine jokes, the military bashing, the parents (Alan Ruck, Cynthia Stevenson) playing hide-the- vibrating-cellphone?

This should quickly become a blip on Panettiere's résumé.