Published on
There are several ways to make an audience care about a movie featuring an unlikable protagonist. One of them is to give him a tragic back-story, another is to make his or her antics very funny. But of all the ways that exist Bad Teacher uses none of them, or at least not to its full extent. The trick they pull here is making the majority of the other characters even more despicable, but when you do that you end up with a movie full of despicable characters. Way to go.
Cameron Diaz is the Bad Teacher and why is she so bad? Well she’s a gold digger and fiancé to a wealthy man and simply has a job in school to keep up appearances and a salary until there’s a shiny ring around her finger. Her way of teaching is playing a movie during every class. As a film critic I can hardly deny the teachings a movie can sometimes have. Scream however isn’t quite an enriching experience.
Bad Teacher is a comedy, albeit not a very good one. I laughed, but not that much. All of the characters were caricatures, but their defining aspects were not all that funny. Timberlake has shown to us he can act, but him dry humping Diaz is simply cringe worthy.
There are some moments the movie does seem on the right track. Some of the schemes Diaz performs for her breast surgery are hilarious. The car wash scene alone will be a crowd pleaser, at least for the male crowd.
The ending feels really weird too. Cameron doesn’t really go through any change throughout the movie other than helping a kid. Her actions at the end of the movie feel somewhat as if they’re coming out of the blue. A subtle remark on her side, suggesting change, would have been enough. Now it’s as if the writers felt they had to make clear to the audience everything would have a happy end, despite it not fitting into the movie.
Bad Teacher didn’t live up to my expectations. I have laughed out loud for onscreen assholes in movies like Guest House Paradiso, sadly I merely chuckled from time to time. Bad Teacher? More a Bad Comedy.
