The School of Rock

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 108 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The critics just love this movie, which immediately had me worried as I bought my ticket. Turns out my fears were well founded as The School of Rock turned out to be just “OK”. It could have been much worse though, the last time Joan Cusack and Jack Black made a movie with music as the subject it was the dreadful High Fidelity.

The School of Rock

Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a true rocker who’s over the top antics get him kicked out of his own band. Desperate for money, he poses as his roommate (a substitute teacher) and takes a teaching gig at a highbrow private school. At first his only plan is to hang out as long as he can while giving the kids lots of recess time so he can get a paycheck, but then he watches his class as they take their music lessons.

From this point on he becomes an inspired teacher, but a teacher of Rock. His goal? To put a band together, enter a local Battle of the Bands contest and win some money. In the process of course, he teaches the kids some good solid Rock ‘n Roll values and grows a little himself. This much you could pick up from the previews. In fact, there’s pretty much nothing you couldn’t pick up from the previews when it comes to this story… it’s 100% by the numbers.

If you’re putting together a formula film, which this certainly is, then you’ve got to have outstanding characters, actors and writing to make a movie that’s above average. As you can tell from the movies 3 star rating, they didn’t have all of these things. I think the actors did great, especially Jack Black who seems to be turning into a darn good actor. Mainly the problem here was with the writing, and perhaps the editing. There were several spots in the film where it was uncomfortably quiet… no music in the soundtrack, and no laughter from the audience. It was one of those times where you look at your fellow audience members and start to wonder what they think about the movie.

In the end, The School of Rock was just average. It made me laugh, I rooted for the kids, and I really enjoyed the closing credits. Past that, I just didn’t really care about the movie and have no desire to see it again.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Comedy, Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Joey Gaydes, Mike White, PG-13, Sarah Silverman, Theatrical