There are powerful moments towards the end, but other than that I found it surprisingly empty and boring

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2018)

English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams) has a rather unorthodox approach to teaching (which raises a few eyebrows in the early stages). Worse is to follow when a group of students find Keating's book and learn about his involvement in The Dead Poets Society (essentially Keating and his fellow students going against the grain). When Keating divulges what The Dead Poets Society is all about the students are intrigued and decide to form their own Dead Poets Society, but will all of this come at a cost?
I hadn't seen Dead Poets Society before but wanted to give it a chance due to its high rating and because it starred Robin Williams (an actor who can be brilliant when given the right material). What really surprised me about this film is how empty and boring it felt to me for the majority of its running time.
I think the major problem I had with this film is that there was nothing really driving the narrative forward; if you look at films like To Sir With Love and Dangerous Minds they focus on students who are initially rebellious and end up being won over by a teacher and their unorthodox teaching methods which means that there is something there to move the story along i.e character shifts and character progression. In Dead Poets Society you don't really get any of that; the kids here seem far too accepting of Keating and his quirky and unorthodox teaching methods which doesn't give the film much of a sense of realism and doesn't make a lot of the classroom scenes all that involving.
Even coming away from the classroom the film still failed to make any kind of impression on me; the kids form a Dead Poets Society and read poetry to one another in some kind of alcove, but I didn't get much out of any of this I'm afraid; no major insights from the characters and no real interesting dialogue. Despite there being a good number of students only 2 of them are given any real development; Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Jim Carrey here and Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles). The former with his overbearing father dictating how he should live his life and the latter with his obsession with a cheerleader who is dating a jock. Both are coming-of-age story arcs, but the latter is rather trite and uninteresting whereas the former is a more interesting thread albeit a tad clichÃ©d in all honesty. Whilst neither of these story arcs are brilliant, they do at least provide the film with some much needed character development and momentum.
Still having said all that the film isn't all bad; the cast are likeable enough (the film boasts an early appearance from a very young Ethan Hawke). Robin Williams is always a welcome presence in any film and does a solid enough job here (although I must confess that I think he has been better in several other films). There are some powerful moments towards the end of the film and the final scene shown in the film is iconic and memorable.
However, for me, Dead Poets Society, for the most part was rather dull and uninvolving - I also found it rather repetitive which also added to the tedium. For me, there were simply too many negatives and not nearly enough positives.