Bad Movie: BAD TEACHER

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is mean, deceitful, and superficial. She enters each and every social situation with only one goal: getting out with whatever will benefit her the most. She’s also a middle-school teacher, the kind that sleeps behind the desk and shows movies everyday. She is the eponymous Bad Teacher. When she’s not skating by, doing the bare minimum required, she’s romantically pursuing the hot substitute with a rich family (Justin Timberlake) while being pursued by the sweet, kind of dumpy gum teacher (Jason Segel).

This sounds like a high-quality setup for a comedy, especially with this usually charming cast, but it’s just not funny. In Elizabeth Halsey, Cameron Diaz, who can be a great comedienne, gets a part that is certainly a more inherently interesting character than she usually gets to sink her teeth into. The problem is the central miscalculation that we'll care about this character just because she's unrepentantly bad, dressing provocatively, swearing, drinking, doing drugs, behaving recklessly. I don't care that she misbehaves because she goes about it for entirely unremarkable reasons.

First, she wants to get a breast augmentation and decides to save up for it, embezzling and lying her way into more cash. Then, she decides to go after the rich sub. Then, she hears about a bonus for the teacher with the class with the highest test scores, so she wants to become a great teacher long enough to get the cash prize. With all these competing selfish motivations laid out in a flat, unremarkable way it’s hard to get a hold of any one tangible reason to care.

The plot's just a shambles that can't be saved by the actors who are given thin unconvincing characters to play. Supporting characters appear and disappear with oddly inconsequential wispiness despite funny work being done by Phillis Smith, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins, Thomas Lennon, and Eric Stonestreet. They drop in and out of the plot with alarming unpredictability. Where do they go when they aren’t showing up to do their required bits? There’s no sense that any of these characters have lives that exist outside the frame.

If the tone weren’t as messy as the plot, I’d be more inclined to cut it some slack. The screenplay by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, of The Office, is neither mean enough nor sweet enough. They want to have their bile and excuse it away too. This is a particularly strange flaw since director Jake Kasdan usually gets the balance right, like in his underrated teen comedy Orange County, underseen showbiz satire The TV Set, or his biopic parody Walk Hard, which manages the difficult feat of mocking while still finding ways to be moving. Bad Teacher just doesn’t work, which is all the more disappointing since it seems to have all the raw materials of a movie that would actually be funny.

Dastardly Deeds: DESPICABLE ME

There’s some Peter Sellers in Steve Carell’s voice-performance as Gru, the Inspector Clouseau of supervillains who is the focus of Despicable Me, the latest computer animated extravaganza, this time from Universal instead of the usual animation houses. Gru speaks in an indeterminately Slavic accent as he bumbles his way through elaborate schemes that only occasionally work by accident. He’s not even considered to be a great villain. He’s certainly not as great as Vector (Jason Segal) who just stole the Pyramids. In fact, on the morning of the great Giza heist, Gru was popping a kid’s balloon and later using a freeze-ray to shorten the line at Starbucks.

Despite help from an elderly mad scientist (Russell Brand) and an army of little scene-stealing yellow nugget-creatures – Minions, he calls them, though I would bet they share some part of their DNA with the Oompa Loompas – Gru is considered to be a hopelessly ineffective villain. Why, none of his schemes have ever turned a profit. His new scheme does look promising though, especially since he has adopted help from a nearby orphanage, three extremely adorable little girls.

All of this is relayed quickly and charmingly in the opening scenes of Despicable Me, which never reaches the heights that other recent family films have, but moves with such energy and style that it’s hard to resist. The plot is a little predictable. Of course those three sisters will melt Gru’s heart. Is that even in doubt? And of course the voice cast is ridiculously overqualified, with people like Julie Andrews and Kristen Wiig given only a few lines each. But the animation is appealing and the pure zaniness of the proceedings is certainly welcome. This is the kind of animated movie that spins out sight-gags and loopy visuals with a Loony Tunes inspired rapid-paced visual wit (even if it doesn’t approach the breakneck speed of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs).

There’s a charm to the movie’s whole-hearted embrace of cartoon physics and slapstick violence devoid of consequences. Rockets explode, gadgets backfire, Minions – and Gru – are squished, smushed, and shot at, yet the worst that ever happens is a coating of soot. But, when the big climax comes and characters we’ve grown to like are in danger, it’s kind of frightening, albeit still in a safe, cartoony, thoroughly kid-friendly way. This climactic danger is heightened by the 3D effect, which amplifies the distance found in a mighty threatening drop. This is the rare movie that actually uses 3D’s added dimensionality for good effect. Rather than merely diminishing a 2D film (The Last Airbender) or applying a barely-noticeable 3D gloss (Toy Story 3), Despicable Me uses the extra space for some gags, some danger, and some added goofiness.

In this summer of cynical, bludgeoning, failing blockbusters, a summer that’s been, with few exceptions, a disappointment, a film like this is refreshing. This is a good-natured, light-hearted, high-energy crowd-pleaser. It’s uncomplicated in its entertainment value. It’s sweet, simple, silly, and satisfying.