Bad Teacher
Original Review – June 26th, 2011
Trailer’s better. I was really hoping this one would be solid, that it wouldn’t be another trailer mirage, but it’s not. Trailer’s much better – the movie can’t back it up. Which makes me sad. I love movies where people are mean to kids. Always makes me laugh. Sigh, such a wasted opportunity.
Ugh, I don’t even want to write about it. I’m just staring at the paper. Blah blah blah.
So Lizzie (Cameron Diaz) is an unapologetic gold digger who blah, ugh, I so don’t care.
So Lizzie wants to marry some rich guy because she’s shallow and annoying. Her rich fiancée, Kevin the PA (Nat Faxon), dumps her because his mommy tells him to, so Lizzie is stuck going back to her teaching job she just quit and will have to continue to work with an assortment of clichéd school characters.
Lizzie hates everything but sees a shining glimmer of hope to bag a rich idiot if she gets big fake boobs. It becomes her holy grail, especially after meeting Golly Gee (Justin Timberlake), a substitute teacher who’s supposed to be rich because he has the name of a watch and wears a bowtie. Lizzie turns all dumb desperate girlfriend attempt thing every time Golly Gee’s around, which he barely notices because he’s too excited that he actually pulled up his big boy panties all by himself today.
After the glow of his big boy panties wears off some, Golly Gee manages to take notice of Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), a teacher who loves teaching, and says all the dumb things you’d expect from a teacher who wears that many barrettes would say. Barrettes has some sass to her, so soon it’s all war of the roses between her and Lizzie.
Standing by watching is gym teacher Russell (Jason Segel), who never seems to do any actual work. Actually, neither does Golly Gee. They just kind of show up when needed.
This is all the same joke. Lizzie’s a jerk without remorse or any redeeming qualities. That should be interesting, since we’re spoon fed so many sweet female leads who try so darn hard to do the right thing. But it’s not, it gets old pretty quickly since there’s nothing else going on here except for Lizzie’s immense unpleasantness. Nothing. Just watch how awful she is. Wow, look, she’s still mean.
I never cared if she got her boobs, I never cared if she bagged her rich, dumb husband. Someone could have blown her up at any time, and that would have been fine. And Golly Gee and Barrettes with the strange American accent didn’t help anything. They were just one-note, and also gave me no reason to care about them. No, wait, I cared enough to hope Golly Gee wouldn’t show up again. No explanation would have been needed, he just didn’t need to come back. But I guess he smelled bacon and managed to find the set day after day.
Still, they are mean to kids, and that made me laugh here and there. Briefly. Needed way more Russell.
I recommend this one to people who get easily distracted by a plot.
*2024 Note – I’ve never re-watched this one. I see it all the time and never even think of playing it. Ever.
