By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
Bad Teacher is rotten to the core.
By Gemma LaMana, Columbia Pictures
Cameron Diaz's gold-digging teacher is odious and unfunny.
By Gemma LaMana, Columbia Pictures
Cameron Diaz's gold-digging teacher is odious and unfunny.
Cameron Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a hard-partying bad apple of an educator. Crude, rude and a lazy stoner, she somehow stumbled into teaching, though her real dream is to be a trophy wife.
On the first day of class, she pops in a DVD of Stand and Deliver, then puts her head down on her desk and naps.
She puts slightly more energy into finding a meal ticket who will keep her in spike-heeled Louboutins and sporty foreign cars. We're not saying she's a gold digger, but she won't be going out with any broke fellow teachers.
Still, Russell (Jason Segel), a likable PE instructor, is itching for a date. They apparently have lots in common, because both like to smoke weed and neither can climb a gymnasium rope. That's pretty much all anyone needs for a romance in Hollywood.
Russell is as decent as Elizabeth is repellent. Her string of lies, schemes and lack of concern for anyone else essentially makes her a sociopath. Worse for a comedy, she's not a very funny character.
Segel generates a few laughs, as does Justin Timberlake as an earnest teacher Elizabeth tries to land when she discovers he's from a rich family.
Bad Teacher
* 1 1/2 out of four
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, Jason Segel, John Michael Higgins
Director: Jake Kasdan
Distributor:Columbia Pictures
Rating: R for sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use
Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Opens Friday nationwide
The film's rhythms are disjointed, and there are tedious patches and gaping holes in the story. No one bothered to create anything beyond a vague outline of a superficial character.
Elizabeth is not dumb, so why she chose teaching when she has so little regard for students or the educational process is a mystery. And if she's bent on meeting rich guys, there are better places to do it. Even in a silly comedy, there should be some sense of the lead character's motives and back story if the audience is expected to give a hoot.
Elizabeth is convinced that she's an 8�, but if she had D cups, she'd be a 10. To raise $10,000 for breast augmentation, she resorts to pilfering from a school fund, blackmailing an administrator, stealing standardized tests and planting drugs on a fellow teacher (Lucy Punch).
Still, we're supposed to find her charming. Or maybe we're supposed to overlook her transgressions because she decides against surgery and embraces her nearly perfect physique. Ah, the redemption.
Diaz brings little but her blond good looks to the role. Then again, she was not given much material to work with. Just rewatch 1998's There's Something About Mary to be reminded she once was funny.
Misanthropic to the extreme, Bad Teacher fails across the board.
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