‘Bad Teacher’ barely earns passing grade

Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher" Cameron Diaz shakes up a middle school fundraiser as the “Bad Teacher.”

Columbia Pictures screened “Bad Teacher” for the press Wednesday night after many regular newspaper deadlines, a sign the studio doesn’t think the movie will be a winner with critics and the public. (We held the presses for our readers, naturally.)

“Bad Teacher” isn’t all that bad. Not all that good, either.

It offers flourishes of funny stuff, a tamely sexy carwash sequence with Cameron Diaz in wet cutoffs, some rude and crude language, a little drug comedy, a few un-PC ethnic slurs and a sellout ending in which the title character undergoes an unbelievable change of personality unsupported by any life-changing event in the movie.

The movie is set in Illinois (the students even take a trip to see the Lincoln exhibit down in Springfield), and an Illinois state academic test booklet is apparently printed in Schaumburg.

Still, why isn’t the R-rated “Bad Teacher” badder? (Read more…)

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