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The Real Education Crisis: School of Rock
Jack Black the teacher? Public Education never looked so good.

Starring: Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman, Joey Gaydos Jr., Miranda Cosgrove, Kevin Clark, Robert Tsai, Maryam Hassan, Rebecca Brown, Caitlin Hale, Aleisha Allen
Director: Richard Linklater

Reviewed by Kevin Cunningham

SYNOPSIS: Jack Black is an unemployed guitarist who gets kicked out of his own band.  He becomes a substitute teacher and uses his talented students to make good on his rock'n'roll dreams.  In other words: Sister Act 2 meets Kindergarten Cop meets That Thing You Do.

Jack Black is a rock god. He really is. In a struggling age for rock, he's brought the fun back to the music. If you don't believe me, watch High Fidelity. Heck, watch the Oscar broadcast with fellow humorist Will Ferrell putting lyrics to that song the orchestra plays when they want the award winner to shut up.

But his love letter to the lost art of rock'n'roll is a confused film that has a fine premise, but like much music of today, never sticks to a good beat long enough for it to catch on.

The premise is solid enough. A rock band failure in need of money takes his friend's place as a substitute teacher, and finds out the kids can play music, so he tries to turn them into a rock band. It's a cute premise, it's a subject that Jack Black can do, and the kids are all as cute as they need to be.

The problem is that this is no five piece band. It's a class of kids, and each one has a problem or a story. The movie tries to give each of these kids his or her five minutes in the spotlight, but the result is a highly schizophrenic collection of subplots that move along far too quickly to catch on.  Eventually the viewer loses sight of the main story, which one believes would be Black's character finding the heart of rock again.

The best of the kids is the Class President, Summer, played by Miranda Cosgrove. She wages a battle of wits with Black, but is sated far too quickly by him giving her the job of being the control freak Band Manager.  The stories of the band members fly by too quickly to get a feel. The blonde drummer is a rebel wannabe who never finds out why it's a bad idea to become one. The guitar player, who is fairly reminiscent of Josh Saviano's Paul from The Wonder Years, has parents who don't think playing music is a good job. The Chinese keyboarder barely even qualifies as a stereotype, and the bass player is barely even there. She doesn't even get a solo as everyone else does in the end credit musical sequence.

The rest of the kids come and go. The most interesting possible storyline is the bigger black girl who wants to be one of the singers, but is too shy because of her weight. Unfortunately, after we find out what she's afraid of, she essentially disappears until her glamour shot in the musical finale. Even Joan Cusack, playing a wonderfully neurotic principal, gets five minutes of subplot time before being relegated to the back of the bus. The one gem is former SNLer Sarah Silverman, who definitely needs to be given a shot in a big role. As the over-controlling girlfriend of Black's friend/roommate/mooch victim (played by writer Mike White), she brings an energy that matches Black in every scene.

Black is in fine form, though, and his interactions with the kids still make this film watchable. He has chemistry with everyone onscreen, and he's finally able to emerge from the sidekick role he's pigeonholed himself into. He is much better than his previous leading role in Shallow Hal, and it's one of his best roles outside of Orange County.

Director Richard Linklater does a capable job with the camera, doing an excellent job of capturing the action, and containing (barely) Black in the confines of the frame. This film is definitely more family-oriented than his defining films Slackers, Dazed and Confused, and SubUrbia. It's too bad he seems to have the attention span of the characters in those films when it comes to the supporting characters in this film, though.

The DVD extras are nothing special. The kids commentary is fun enough to listen to, if you don't have kids of your own. Otherwise, it's pretty basic, and only worth going over if you have nothing else to do and really really like Jack Black.

Rating	Film:(2 1/2 out of 4 stars)
	Extras: (3out of 4 stars)
	Overall: (2 1/2 out of 4 stars)

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