A black teen comedy without a single original thought, Love Don't Cost a Thing is an only occasionally diverting comedy that will mostly leave you amazed and amused at the sheer number of genre cliches it throws at you. You've surely seen this story a hundred times before, and more recently, you've probably seen this exact film, only with white people. It was called Can't Buy Me Love. When you make that realization, you understand that even the title is a ripoff. But then, Love Don't Cost a Thing isn't really interested in giving you anything new—except perhaps for its blackness, which it exudes through its characters, its music, and its African American idiosyncracies.

Alvin (Nick Cannon) is a black, nerdy high-school senior with no prospects in the love department. He hangs out with other nerds, and somewhat head-scratchingly, he spends his spare time with those nerds building a muscle car. Whaaa? He's also a hapless pool boy. Of course, he dreams to be popular and to be the lucky boyfriend of school hottie Paris Morgan (Christina Milian). Through an eye-rolling series of events, Alvin finds that he can help out Paris in a time of need, and in return, she must pretend to be his girlfriend for a coupla weeks. The film then becomes a series of easy moral lessons aimed at the high-school set.

The film is a shameless amalgam of teen-comedy elements that have worked in the past. You have the boy pining for the most unattainable girl in school. You have the dream of building the perfect muscle car. You have the teenager crashing the parent's car. You have the bargain that finds the boy buying from the girl the illusion that she's his girlfriend, and getting a cool makeover from said girl. You have the reputation ruined by new alliances. You have the high-strung comic relief in the form of a deranged friend. There's the grooming meticulously for the big date. There's the annoying narc in the form of the little sister. There's the dubious advice from the father. There's the spending of the nest egg in the name of love for the girl. And then there's the whole falling-in-love-when-you-least-expected-it thing. And they go on.

I haven't even mentioned the plethora of black-culture cliches. But the film doesn't care about the fact that it wallows in cliche. Its aim seems to be to take all those white-boy cliches and create something new for the black experience. But it all seems terribly shallow to me, the stuff of sitcoms. Even for a silly comedy, Love Don't Cost a Thing is reaching.

Warner presents Love Don't Cost a Thing in a good anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 1.85:1 theatrical presentation. Detail is the best aspect, and a subtle graininess gives the image a very filmlike look. The color palette is very rich, perhaps too auburn, and skin tones appear accurate.

The disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation is good, particularly regarding the score. The music, which pulses over just about every scene, has a nice heft and dimension, spread entertainingly across the front. Dialog is mostly accurate but has a tendency toward brittleness at the top end. Where the presentation fails is in the surrounds, which are silent.

The first supplemt of note is Additional Scenes and Alternate Ending, which amounts to nine scenes. Presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, these are all pretty forgettable.

Next comes the beefiest supplement, a 22-minute featurette called The Making of Love Don't Cost a Thing, an EPK piece that will leave you yawning.

You also get Music Videos for Murphy Lee's Love Me Baby, as well as Shorty (Put It on the Floor) from Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Chingy, and Nick Cannon.

Rounding things off is the film's Theatrical Trailer.

Even if you're in this film's demographic, you'll probably find this derivative comedy cliched to the extreme. Although the video and audio are above average, the supplements feel like an afterthought. This one's a rental at best.