"Dead" in the water (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2002)

There are several movies I adored that large portions of the population just didn't seem to get--"Moulin Rouge" for example. Logic dictates, therefore, that there must be films out there that a lot of people seem to really like which don't do that much for me. And here, in "Dead Poets Society" we have the proof of the theorem.
First off, credit where it's due: Robin Williams is excellent as John Keating, an English teacher in a high-brow private school. Dynamic as always, Williams provides the majority of this film's energy, creating the sort of teacher that we all wish we had in high school. If the film had focused more on the relationship with Keating and the young men in his classroom, it might have been more inspirational.
Instead, we are treated to several scenes of quasi-male-bonding as the lads (headed by Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard) ressurect the Dead Poets Society (founded by Keating in his school days) and dedicate themselves to rebellion and poetry, in that order. Mostly they smoke and do things like try to impress women by reading poetry to them. This really works, because the girls to whom they pay their addresses are so dim the boys can pass famous poetic work off as their own. If, on being addressed with "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" one of the women responded, "Oh, I love Shakespeare! Do you know 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments'?" I would have been more impressed. Leonard's character Neil gets bit by the acting bug, and is in raptures when he's cast as the "lead role" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (I question the theory that "Midsummer" has any one lead, but that's just me). Another boy falls in love with a local cheerleeder because--well, because she's pretty, I guess. This poor girl is resorted to telling the guy that her boyfriend will kill him if she's seen with him, a threat which I never really believed.
The movie takes it's worst nosedive near the end, where Neil, being forbidden to pursue his drama yen by his father, kills himself. An abrupt and senseless move (I can think of half a dozen options which might have been more constructive), the suicide seems to exist for no other reason than to give the conservative staff of the school reason to rake Keating over the coals. Even then, if Keating had not been reduced to a spectator in his own fate, the ending of the film might have been salvagable. As it was, the conclusion was weak and unsatisfying, leaving me thinking "Is that it"?