Good or bad? The clue is in the title.
After the critical and box office success that the Inbetweeners movies received, it’s no big surprise that the BBC3 series Bad Education has also been given a big screen makeover.
Usually British sitcoms fail to impress in feature-length form – and unfortunately – this is one of those occasions.
To celebrate the end of GCSEs, Wickers (Jack Whitehall) wants to take his class to Las Vegas. After being told that this trip would be too impracticle, he settles for second best… a trip to Cornwall. As expected, things derail quickly – which is particularly bad news for Wickers, as one student’s overzealous mother is also in attendance and looking for a reason to get the bad teacher fired. When the class unwittingly get caught up with the Cornish Liberation Army, it’s fair to say it’s not an ideal situation.
The opening scene reflects on the controversial humour of the television show. The inept school teacher takes his class to Amsterdam, where he uses a disabled pupil to queue-jump and after (unbeknown to him at the time) taking drugs, he steals a mannequin of Anne Frank. An unrelated gag that soon follows involves a prosthetic testicle. But that’s OK… that style of humour is not for me, but I can see how others would find it funny. Nothing mentioned above is my reason for disliking the movie. After the first act, the movie loses its identity – taking a darker tone that feels out of place with the first 30 minutes.
There is some fantastic supporting talent including Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Talulah Riley and Clarke Peters (The Wire), who seem to only have been cast so that their names can be planted on the posters. All they seem to do is react to Whitehall’s crazy antics. This is very much the Whitehall show – and even those that are big fans of the comedian may find the whole viewing experience tiresome towards the end.
See Bad Education and much more at Showcase Cinema, Peterborough. Visit www.showcasecinemas.co.uk for the latest up-to-date show times. You can also join the chat on Twitter @showcasecinemas or on Facebook by searching for ‘Showcase Cinemas UK’
Mikey Clarke
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Genre: Comedy
Cast: Jack Whitehall, Mathew Horne, Sarah Solemani, Harry Enfield
Running Time: 91mins
Directed by: Elliot Hegarty
See it if you liked: Keith Lemon: The Film & Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie