After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Jack Black stars as a failed rock musician who in financial desperation, pretends to be his friend Mike White and takes a job as a substitute teacher at a prestigious private elementary school. Having no qualification, he initially treats it as an opportunity to goof of, until he realizes that his students are fairly gifted musicians. He trains them to be a rock band so that he can enter a battle of the bands competition and get revenge on his former band mates who kicked him out. Do I even need to tell you that Black learns to care about these kids? There's really nothing original here, but Black is in his element here and makes the material work. He gets some pretty solid support from Joan Cusack as the school principal. It's hardly among Richard Linklater's best films, but his relaxed, stoner style is well suited for the material.

Jack Black is one of those actors who always play slight variations of themselves. He could be described as a character actor or less nicely, an actor with not much of a range.Not surprisingly, in this movie he is an obnoxious, selfish, immature guy who sings in a low-level band and exploits an old friend for free lodgings. When the girlfriend of said friend asks him to pay the rent, he resentfully set out to find a job. Said girlfriend portrayed as an unpleasant bitch, only because she makes a reasonable request...Through a series of implausible events Jack (apologies, I mean Dewey) ends up teaching rock to a bunch of kids in a posh school. Not because he likes teaching but because he needs them to be his "support band" for the battle of the bands, since no legitimate rock band would have him.It is quite creepy to hear a grown-up man telling pre-pubescent girls they could be groupies, not to mention the manipulation of kids for his own purpose. At the end Jack (I mean Dewey) acknowledges that the band is more important than any single member, but throughout the movie we see him in every single scene playing the only "cool" character among a bunch of boring, nasty, square people of all ages.Besides Black being totally predictable, the screenplay is even more so. Finally, for a comedy there are very few real funny moments. The only saving grace is the music, with a totally unexpected bit from Led Zeppelin exploding in a scene.For die-hard Black's fans and people who think being a freeloader is a cool way to live. P.S. also probably the worst Linklater film.

I love School of Rock. This movie is very funny. Mike White wrote a great script with hilarious and memorable jokes. Jack Black perfectly delivers many amusing jokes. He is supported by many other strong acting performances by Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman, and Mike White. Even the children have decent performances as the students. Richard Linklater, one of my favorite directors, does a marvelous job of directing the kids. Also, the music in this movie is great. Many great songs were on the soundtrack, including: "Sunshine Of Your Love," "Immigrant Song," "Back In Black," and way too many more to name. This movie could've been bad in many ways: Jack Black acting stupid, lackluster acting, bad/child jokes, etc., but none of these things happened at all!This movie is one of my favorites. If you are debating whether you should watch it or not, WATCH IT!! It is, in my opinion, the most underrated film of all time, and everyone should watch this movie.

I don't care what other reviewers say, this is a horrible movie. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief slightly in the name of 'entertainment' but it's impossible to do that with this film. To consider a few examples: 1) Dewey doesn't provide any identification to the school upon his arrival nor is he asked for any - really?? 2) The police don't take any action against Dewey despite his deliberate and repeated acts of fraud, identity theft, child abduction and child engagement and he's even able to work unsupervised with children again?- really??? 3)He has no teaching assistants in his class and he doesn't have any member of the senior member team observe him(apart from a small bit which is clearly for the purposes of plot development) 4) are we really supposed to believe that the parents seriously care about their children's education if they wait until the parents evening to voice their concerns? Wouldn't the lack of academic homework or the fact that they would have been giving vague answers about what they had done at school that day have rung alarm bells earlier - particularly as it was a private and not a public school?(and I find it impossible to believe that none of the children would have told their parents about the band) This point is made even worse by the fact that the parents of Lawrence knew he's been asked to listen to the album, which probably causes a safeguarding concern by itself as its probably not age appropriate music for a child of his age to listen to.5) A battle of the bands completion can sell out a medium sized venue at 2/3 in the afternoon on a weekday? Doesn't anybody in this film have a job? 6) the promoter gave them the spot on the bill without even listening to them - for he knew they could been absolutely rubbish 7) The police weren't called when all the children went missing and the concert went ahead anyway - a quick phone call to social services could have got the place shut down in a second.8) the field trip was still booked - this is the most ridiculous plot hole of all because (a) The bus would have been booked via the school and I find it hard to believe it wouldn't have been cancelled immediately once Dewey's deception was found out and (b) The Bus driver hasn't been told about the deception or even found out about it(I would imagine it would have made at least the local news or got around the town pretty quickly).9) How on earth does Summer know where Dewey lives??? - either he gave her his home address(why) or she got it from the school(how) - both of which are data protection and safeguarding issues.Yes, OK... it's 'just a film' but just take a moment to think about what the subtext of this 'film' is actually saying about these various issues