Cameron Diaz stars as Elizabeth Halsey, a scheming and coarse-tongued middle school teacher who gets dumped by her wealthy boyfriend and rebounds by sinking her claws into a handsome substitute teacher (Justin Timberlake). There's just one problem, though: He's already dating Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), the most revered teacher on campus. And Ms. Squirrel is not at all eager to hand over her beau, who is slated to inherit his family's fortune.
Maybe Hollywood is easing up a bit and coming to a realization that woman can actually be funny if they are given the chance because after the female led Bridesmaid, we are given a comedy led by yet another female face in Cameron Diaz. This can only help woman deviate into these type of comedies rather than pumping out so many terrible romantic comedies. The success these last two films have had will hopefully lead to bigger and better things. Now despite the success Bad Teacher has achieved doesn’t mean it was deserving.
It attempts to throw a lot of swear words at you and call itself raunchy, but the fact of the matter is, without those words this is easily a PG-13 film. If you’re going to go with an R rating you might as well go all out with it. Hear it still tends to be cautious as to not chase away tis female audience that might not be as welcoming to the raunchiness most males tend to enjoy. This type of approach makes it extremely hit or miss. There were some pretty damn funny scenes, but nowadays simply cursing as become so common it’s not enough. That is where it just misses the mark and turns out to be average.
That may have to do with the casting choices it made. Cameron Diaz is fine for the most part, but her character is such a bitch, never do you actually want her to get what she wants. You want to get fired, become homeless, and start turning tricks for cash. Her comedy has always been there but I cannot stand her when shes the leading lady. She seems best served In supporting roles. Justin Timberlake feels like a completely wasted opportunity here. I think he is very funny, but they give him nothing in this film. He acts as the object of affection between two women, and the one scene that thought would be hilarious turns out to be just plain weird. The movies villain, if you want to call her that, is Mrs Squirrel who is initially funny but at some point starts turning into an unfunny freak that just needs to go off screen and die a bit. The boat that keeps the film afloat is Jason Segal as the down to earth gym teacher who just pops into the scene says something funny then slowly drifts away. You’ll be counting the minutes until he pops up again.
Bad Teacher appeared to be something that had a lot of potential but either due to lazy performances or bad writing, it ended up being purely average. It’s not terrible by any means but it has to go down as a disappointment from a comedic aspect. These were funny people starring in a comedy that seemed to have as many hits as misses. If you are looking for a few laughs or to kill some time, this will do the trick nothing more, but maybe less.
Overall Score: 6/10
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