School of Rock

Reviewed By Rich Drees

     The new comedy School of Rock left me with one burning question- How come I never had a substitute teacher as fun as Jack Black?

     Rock musician Dewey Finn (Black) is not having a good day. The band he helped build has kicked him out. His roommate Ned (School of Rock’s writer Mike White) is being badgered by his girlfriend (the criminally underused Sarah Silverman) to pay back all the money Dewey has borrowed. Strapped for cash, Dewey impersonates substitute teacher Ned when a prestigious elementary prep school calls looking for a replacement for a teacher who will be out for a few weeks.

     Conning his way past Principal Rosalie Mullins (Joan Cusack), Black just wants his class of 5^th graders to sit quietly through the school day. But after he hears them perform in their music class, he gets the idea to form them into a rock group to compete against his old band in an upcoming Battle of the Bands. He immerses them into an intensive course on rock history and theory, which in turn helps the young musicians discover things about themselves.

     The story doesn’t contain many surprises and its beats are fairly predictable. But School of Rock isn’t about the destination, it’s about the jokes told along the way, which fly at the audience fast and furious, hitting their targets more times than not. There are also a few glaring plot holes (have you ever heard of a Battle of the Bands contest in the middle of a week day afternoon?) but the movie is so good-natured you find yourself willing to overlook them.

     Jack Black can be one of the funniest actors currently working today. Unfortunately, he can have a tendency to go over the top (see Orange County or Saving Silverman) and needs a strong director to help him measure his performance. Fortunately director Richard Linklater is able to guide Black to his best performance since his break out role in High Fidelity. Black is in top form here, equally good with the physical comedy and delivering such funny lines as “This is a project that will test your head, your mind and your brain.”

     But as good as Black is in the role, the film is almost stolen by his young charges. All the young actors in the film played their own instruments and never came down with a distracting case of “the cutes”. Unfortunately, outside of Summer (Miranda Cosgrove), the class teacher’s pet who is designated the band’s manager, none of the students are featured as much as they could be.