Review By Michael Jones
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Duration:
83 minutes
Trailer (requires QuickTime)
Set in an idyllic town, Recess: School’s Out shows how students and teachers can finally work together to meet a common goal. Based on the Disney television series Recess, this movie is packed with the same jokes and gags that made the series popular.
It opens on the last day of school for the year, showing the children and teachers alike getting prepared for their Summer vacation, with teacher’s packing up their classrooms and students performing their last pranks. The main character: TJ, is horrified when his friends abandon him for the Summer while they go to camp. Isolated from his friends, TJ discovers a dastardly conspiracy to remove summer vacation, occurring in the now abandoned school building. It is only after enlisting the help of his unwilling sister, his friends and his arch-nemesis: Principal Prickly, that he can hope to save summer vacation.
This movie is a mix of several different topics ranging from the joys of childhood to hippies. The movie is rather comical in some places, and is well animated, but unfortunately this movie is let down by the lack of gags (which it set itself up for several times), a couple of holes in the plot (eg: the evil guy has a gun, but he only uses it twice), and the sudden plot twist to a meaningful movie at the end. Another letdown is that the jokes in the movie are often references to the person’s character in the television series, removing half the jokes that were in the movie
Not a bad movie, but unless you are insanely curious, a fan of the show or just plain stupid, you’re better off saving your pennies.
Mike.