Bad Teacher
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Lucy punch, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segal
Director: Jake Kasdan
Ratings: Film: 2/5
Blu-Ray: 3/5
Blame Judd Apatow, blame Todd Phillips or just blame the world, but curse filled comedy is here to stay. But it’s not just something for the guys though, with first Bridesmaids and now Bad Teacher showing sister can shock too.
Cameron Diaz stars as Elizabeth Halsey, the titular bad teacher who’s more interested by booze than homework. She’s also on the prowl for a rich husband after being thrown out by her last suitor and stumbles upon a new well-off substitute teacher (Justin Timberlake) and starts fighting do-gooder colleague Amy (Lucy Punch) over his affections, all while trying to raise money for a bout of cosmetic surgery.
The trouble is that while what’s written above might stand as the plot of a TV show, it fails as enough to keep a 90 minute film interesting. Bad Teacher feels loose and sloppy because it is exactly that, with nothing apart from Halsey’s general nastiness moving the film on.
While Halsey may be mean, there is nothing else to her. There are no redeemable factors about the character. At all. Even her inevitable emotional turn around feels cheap, contrived and unwarranted. Worst of all, she’s not even funny.
This is a film full of single joke barley-characters, adding very little to a script that needs all the help it can get.
The only real laughs come from Jason Segal’s gym teacher, who always feels like a character drafted in from a funnier film to bulk up the chuckle count. It proves that more than cursing and profanity is needed for laughs.
This unrated Blu-ray edition is easily best version going though, as the occasional inclusions make the film get slightly closer to its goals.
With crisp picture quality and some behind the scenes extra in keeping with the films brand of humour, it makes sure that the best version of the film is this Blu-ray edition.
Bad Teacher is though, above all else, dull. The jokes don’t hit the right notes, no matter how often they try, the characters are flat and lifeless and overall it never even gets close to being regularly funny.
Bed Teacher is out now
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith
Tagged in Cameron Diaz