Awesome - one of 2003's best (****)

Rating: 10/10 (19 October 2003)

"The School Of Rock" is the movie I have been waiting to see for a long, long time. After years of empty, unimaginative music consistently topping the charts, I am thrilled that now there's a movie devoted to that music that has moved me like none other ever since I was a little kid...ROCK. Just in those 4 letters lies the whole truth to my universe. Sure, I listen to lots of other kinds of music (everything from blues to techno) but, as Jack Black might say, I will always return to rocking. And will this movie turn all today's kids who are brainwashed by Christina Aguilera and P. Diddy into cool rocking kids? Probably not. But definitely some.
Jack Black, the wild-eyed madman who is one-half of the brilliant satirical rock band Tenacious D stars as Dewey Finn, a hotshot lead guitarist who is booted from his band for being an embarrassment, and is right on the edge of being kicked out of his apartment by his roommate, Ned (Mike White, who also wrote the script).
When Rosalie Mullins (Joan Cusack), the principal of an expensive prep school, calls to offer a job to Ned (who is a substitute teacher), Dewey jumps at the opportunity to earn some money and accepts the job, posing as Ned.
Dewey doesn't have much to teach the room of little middle-school kids he is faced with, but when he finds out that they are experienced musicians, he decides to form them into a rock band. It will take some work though, because these kids don't know Led Zeppelin from Liza Minelli.

Of course you can see exactly where this is going, but in a movie like this, its predictability actually makes it MORE entertaining, because if the kids didn't play their hearts out at the Battle Of The Bands and if the movie ended unhappily, that would suck and you know it.
His style may not be to everyone's taste, but to me, Jack Black is a comic genius. Every yell, curve of his eyebrows, and spastic motion of his body is pure comedy heaven. And the kids are great too; smart, charismatic and funny, especially Joey Gaydos, who is an amazing guitarist (and he's 10!) and Robert Tsai as the shy keyboardist. This is a great movie, one of the best of the year, so go. And besides, is there anything cooler that a training montage set to the Ramones' "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)"? Nope, I don't think so.