The first thing that come to mind when watching Higher Learning is that it has an impressive cast and simple but beautiful opening credits. This title sequence has its own credit and it has been done by legendary credit-maker Saul Bass. These credits are made pure in black and white; a theme that is so evident throughout this movie. Subtlety is nowhere to be found in this portrait of a school campus in which all kinds of young people with different (racial) backgrounds need to get along with each other. Something that's not always the case.

Higher Learning follows three freshman students on the Columbus University. Malik (Omar Epps), a black guy who's gotten in on a sports-scholarship, Kristen (Kristy Swanson), a somewhat naive young white girl from California and Remy (Michael Rapaport), a young white guy who can't seem to fit in in any group. The reason I'm listing their racial backgrounds and their sex is because a whole lot of the movie deals around racism and sexism. Malik thinks the world owes him something and is constantly complaining how the black guy is put down by the white man. His 'rage' is fueled by the Van Wilder of this school: senior Fudge (Ice Cube), a "professional student" who is constantly talking with about race and politics. His complaints and views are partially justified as Campus Security breaks up their parties, but never parties by white students even after a rape. The black students are constantly hassled and asked for I.D. Tipping the scale the other way for Malik is Deja (a very young Tyra Banks), who explains to him this constant complaining doesn't get him forward in life and that he should be pointing at himself and no to others.
To give the Black Panthers some antagonists their are of course Nazis on the campus. They have their own little dorm filled with Swastika flags and have constant heated dialogues about how this country is being stolen away from them (forgetting it was the white man himself who stole this country in the first place). They bring in Remy to their gang of hate mongers who turns radical pretty quickly after some early encounters with some black people of Campus.
Then we have Kristen who gets 'raped' and gets recruited to a non-sexist-society group lead by the lesbian Taryn (Jennifer Connelly). As Kristen spends more and more time with Taryn she's starting to question her own sexuality as she's started to get attracted to her and not long after that they start prancing around the Campus hand in hand.

This is already quite a list of characters and there are more. Laurence Fishburne plays a conservative professor who hammers on the fact that he judges everybody on their work not on who they are. Regina King is the black roommate of Kristen who witnesses her flirtation with the lesbian Taryn, Adam Goldberg is the Jewish roommate of Remy the Nazi and Busta Rhymes does an irritating performance as Dreads, one of Fudge's closest friends.

The movie does two things wrong:
1. It tries to cram a 3-hour story into a 2-hour movie.
2. The movie presents the problems it deals with in black and white.

Revolving around the lives of three characters the movie deals with a lot of supporting characters also. These characters don't always have much to do. A character like Monet (Regina King) gets nothing to do during the entire movie and serves no point in bringing the plot forward. Taryn (Jennifer Connelly) is listed first during the opening credits yet has only one small scene after 15 minutes only to turn up again around the 40 minute mark. After that she becomes the object of affection for Kristen but still she doesn't get much to do. The movie feels trimmed as not only changes seem to happen overnight like the becoming a Nazi of Remy which basically is nothing more than: somebody listens to him and says he's his friend and in return he listens to what they have to say, the next minute he's sitting a the school library with his head shaven looking despicably to all the other students with a different racial background. But the movie also lets different story-lines unresolved at the end of the movie. The lesbian romance for instance: Kirsten gets raped... well raped... they say it's a rape but I beg to differ. You see she and a fellow male student are drunk and go to his room to have sex. All is fine and she happily lets him undress her mumbling something about a rubber. When the guy is in she becomes annoyed that he isn't wearing a rubber and starts screaming. He doesn't go immediately of her and so she has been 'raped'. I was shaking my head when later on Kristen was speeching at a rally about how she was a rape victim. The girl wanted to have sex with the guy, it was only after it turned out he wasn't using a rubber she got all freaky on him. But this event propels Kristen into the women's talk group led by Taryn who to me turned out to be a lesbian out of the blue when Kristen tried to invite her in late at night to get to know each other a little bit better. She refuses. Other than that they start to hold hands later on and when Kristen has sex with a new boyfriend she's thinking of Taryn. That's it, the movie never gives us a resolution. Guess Kristen's still addicted to the cock.

Now the black and white part; Remy turns into a Nazi overnight, Malik turns into a Black Panther overnight, and a 'rape' will pave the way for a venture into lesbianism. All characters are extreme in their opinions and their behavior. Characters who are in the grey area don't get much screen time and so the movie eventually becomes a movie about black vs whites and a sexually confused girl who wants to bring these groups together. I wanted some more grey (or color) in the movie than just black and white.

Higher Learning is not a bad movie it's just not a complete movie. With a little more time taken to develop en resolve certain plot-lines. The whole lesbian plot seems to be thrown out of the window at the last moment and every heterosexual male would've loved to see that to be given some more expose. I mean Jennifer Connelly and Kristy Swanson? I'd buy that for a dollar! The whole Nazi-thing makes it all more of a caricature. Nazi's as bad guys on a high school complete with swastika tattoos? It's a bit over the top don't you think?

The movie does hold your attention the entire running time and at the end I did wish it ran a little longer but after watching it I must conclude it could've been done better.

As good as it gets