Diaz, ‘Bad Teacher’ just barely earn passing grade
All legs and hair and eyeliner and attitude, Cameron Diaz makes a formidable “Bad Teacher” in the raunchy new comedy from director Jake Kasdan (“Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” “Orange County”).
She’s nasty, conniving and selfish as Elizabeth Halsey, a middle-school instructor who cares more about scamming money for breast implants than her students.
Diaz is funny, all right, but she is no miracle worker, so she can’t erase the movie’s slow spots (it feels much, much longer than its 92-minute running time, never a good sign for a comedy). “Bad Teacher” is as uneven as that wobbly desk you got stuck with in seventh grade.
It’s amusing in plenty of spots but wastes too much time focusing on jokes that are repetitive and exaggerated – British actress Lucy Punch as Miss Squirrel, the gung-ho, goody-two-shoes teacher determined to expose her rival as a drug-addled cheater – instead of rewarding better characters with more screen time.
Jason Segel as a laid-back gym coach intrigued by Elizabeth is the film’s secret weapon, and he’s virtually invisible for the first half hour or so.
As the film opens, Elizabeth is saying goodbye to the colleagues she despises at John Adams Middle School, happy to be leaving her job to marry a rich guy.
But he’s onto the fact that she’s only after his money and dumps her, leaving Elizabeth with no choice but to return to long, dull mornings of sleeping off hangovers at her desk while her students dutifully watch “Stand and Deliver.”
Then a savior arrives in the form of substitute teacher Scott (an appropriately goofy Justin Timberlake, who turns out to be a braver comedian than you may have imagined), who reveals that his family has money.
Elizabeth immediately starts trying to seduce him, but believes she needs the breasts of her dreams to pry Scott’s attention from the squeaky-clean charms of Miss Squirrel – and she knows she can’t afford them on a teacher’s salary.
Like most good comedies, “Bad Teacher” is populated by familiar character actors. Some contribute greatly, such as Phyllis Smith from “The Office” as Elizabeth’s shy (and only) friend on the staff, and Eric Stonestreet of “Modern Family” as her slovenly roommate (she found him on Craigslist).
Others must grovel unbecomingly for laughs, like Molly Shannon as an over-eager parent of one of Elizabeth’s lovelorn students and comic veteran John Michael Higgins as the principal who’s obsessed with dolphins, a joke to which “Bad Teacher” returns over and over, though it never pays off.
The movie may not earn an A-plus, but at least it’s far from getting an F.