Completely designed as a vehicle for Cameron Diaz, Bad Teacher is a bad taste romp that's quite fun while you're there but pretty forgettable. The plot is wafer thin - Cameron stars as... uh oh, I've forgotten her character's name already and it's been less than a week. Ummm, thanks IMDB, she stars as Elizabeth Halsey, a total bitch who will do anything for money and to get a rich husband. After being dumped when her latest rich boy twigs to her true ways, she is begrudgingly forced to return to teaching early high schoolers, putting her in competition with the popular overachieving but slightly odd reacher Ms Squirrel (Lucy Punch, who totally steals this movie from the gorgeous but barely trying Cam). When new substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) arrives, Elizabeth sees a new rich boy she can set her sights on as he's the heir to a watch making family fortune, while fending off the advances of gym teacher Russell (Jason Siegel). Elizabeth's antics to snare Scott is the core of the movie.
The pluses for this movie is that it is intermittently quite funny and continues the recent run of foul-mouthed almost gross-out comedies. It's also pretty short so it doesn't wear out its welcome. Jason Siegel is funny as the gym teacher who totally gets his situation and pursues the "out of his league" Elizabeth quite persistently. Lucy Punch is hilarious as the good girl teacher who becomes increasingly more jittery as Elizabeth steps up the fight after Scott takes more of a liking to Ms Squirrel.
On the negatives, let's start with Justin Timberlake. I just don't think he can act - what does everyone see in him. He is good on SNL but he always seems like he's doing a skit on SNL during the movies. His character in this is also pretty wet so that doesn't help (related note - JT's upcoming Friends with Benefits looks like a shocker from the trailer, even Mila Kunis' biggest fan Ben doesn't want to go see it even for her stripping off). The humour is also quite bizarre in places - I can imagine some people will see this and just think it a bit weird, it's just slightly left of centre and I'm not talking about the crudeness. You probably have to see it to know what I mean though.
Cameron Diaz does a good job, she's so pretty but sill down to earth enough to make Elizabeth's constant trashed-ness believable. She definitely does well with comedy and pulls off the dirtiness the role requires. And the best part of the movie is probably the fact that there is no 360 degree personality change for a happy ending like it could have been and so many others have been. Her priorities may change a little but she remains pretty much the same naughty party girl as she is at the beginning. This is pretty admirable for what could be perceived as an R rated rom-com. It's been billed a little bit as the companion piece to Bad Santa, but this bad teacher still has nothing on Billy Bob Thornton as the biggest asshole ever (possible exception his own character in School for Scoundrels, another wrong-rom-com) and it's certainly not looking like it will be as memorable. We still watch Bad Santa every Christmas eve but this movie isn't going to make our summer break viewing on an annual basis. Fun, but too fluffy and just slightly wrong.
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