By RUSSELL BAILLIE
Herald rating: * * * *
The kids are all right. It's their teacher who's a worry. But the chief lesson from School of Rock is you can take age-old plots — the let's-put-on-a-show one and the one where the mismatched instructor finds the true potential in a bunch
of kids — and make a hilarious movie out of them, all over again.
Jack Black, soon to head here for King Kong, is Dewey Finn, a thirty-something go-nowhere rock guitarist. Needing to pay the rent, he fakes his way into a job as a substitute teacher at a snooty prep school and winds up with a class of 10-year-olds.
The only thing he can teach them is Rock 101. Of course, 10-year-olds these days don't know much about rock. But all kids like dinosaurs — so Dewey drags out AC/DC, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin to teach them riff-appreciation. While that might sound like Sister Act: The Metal Years, it's infectious every time Black and his young band crank it up in the classroom. And it reminds there's nothing cooler than a 10-year-old in a V-neck school jersey playing a Flying V guitar.
The kids are actually more than all right, whether it's the shy piano prodigy, the precocious would-be music magnate or the Aretha-in-the-making. In the only other major adult role, Joan Cusack's tightly wound school principal, is a hilarious foil to Black's deluded rock'n'roll fool.
You just know how it's going to end. But with School of Rock, a sort of Spinal Tap for the whole family, getting there is a goofy, headbangin' joy.
Highlights of the DVD extras include the commentaries by Black, director Richard Linklater as well as the interactive feature "Dewey Finn's History of Rock".
DVD, video rental
