There was no school or work today because of the threat of Hurricane Matthew. However, our area was fortunate and life resumed a fairly normal but overcast aura. We decide to head to the movie theater that was open and see a family friendly movie, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life. There are some great comedic actors in the film, but I found the writing to be a bit weak possibly due to the adaptation of a book. I give Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life the Decent Watch rating, but my wife and daughter both said it was great.
Middle School has a bit too convoluted story that drowns out the content.
Rafe (Griffin Gluck) is starting at a new school, which is the last one willing to accept him. He has a creative mind but immediately finds conflict with Principal Dwight (Andrew Daly) who shoves a book of rules at him to learn. Rafe is dealing with family problems, the new principal, and normal teenage drama until he decide to use his creativity to make a change.
Andrew Daly, Adam Pally, Retta, and Rob Riggle are all known for being quite comedic. All have moments that show their comedic nature, but they are all given little to work with. Daly gets the most screen time as he is the prime antagonist. He managed to get the most laughs from me. Pally’s character was a little too much of the “cool” teacher and felt like he was supposed to be a mentor to Rafe. However, that story arch is definitely underdeveloped in the film. Riggle plays the same step-dad type antagonist that he is cast in frequently, but honestly felt shoehorned in.
Lauren Graham plays a loving mother of Rafe and Georgia (Alexa Nisenson), but appears to be completely clueless at times. Her motherly introduction of the film is very funny and her mom speeches are well delivered. The highlights are the kid actors who all hold their roles pretty well. There are a few moments that feel a little too scripted between Rafe and Leo (Thomas Barbusca). However, the cast is predominantly likeable, but the film felt overstuffed with storylines.
The biggest issue is the film tried to do too much
This leads me to believe that the book had lots of story arcs that were able to be developed. The adaptation should have chosen just a couple and worked with those. The main arc of Rafe versus the tyrannical principal is plenty to make a fun movie. There is an arc about Rafe and his brother that is important and felt like it was shoved into the film, but emotionally charged enough that it didn’t matter. Had that arc been more prominent and the stepdad and the really poorly cast school bully, Miller (Jacob Hopkins), the film would have been stronger.
In the end, it’s a decent family film that seemed to satisfy the needs of my family. I have pretty high expectations of films and comedies at this point so it was less impactful on me. After a few days of horror films, I expected any comedy to win me over so I was disappointed. There is an interesting twist in the film that echoed my first attempt of writing a screenplay. If only I had James Patterson’s connections.
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