Jackson Booth-Millard
The sitcom may not have been popular with critics, but it was a fantastic three series on BBC Three, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out there was a movie, I just hoped as the last venture for the characters, it would be a good sendoff. Basically Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall) has taken Class K on a trip to Amsterdam, unbeknownst to him, Mitchell Harper (Britain's Got Talent's Charlie Wernham) has spiked his crepe with magic mushrooms, causing him to hallucinate while at the Anne Frank Museum, he sees student Jing Hua (Kae Alexander) as a panda, and steals the Anne Frank dummy thinking it is alive. A year later, the PTA are angered when Alfie plans to take his students to Las Vegas, they doubt the educational value of the trip, they demand Alfie be sacked, but Deputy Head and Alfie's father Martin Wickers (Harry Enfield), headmaster Shaquille Fra$er (Mathew Horne) and teacher and Alfie's girlfriend Miss Rosie Gulliver (Sarah Solemani) insist he is given another chance. The teachers plan a surprise visit to Alfie's class, they walk in as Mitchell attempts to tattoo Alfie with "Class K Forever", he passes out and is left with only the letters "CLA", the classroom visit ends with parents refusing to pay for the Las Vegas trip, Alfie decides to take his students to Cornwall himself instead. Student Joe Poulter (Ethan Lawrence) is concerned his overbearing mother Susan (Joanna Scanlan) won't let him go, but Alfie fools the parents into thinking the trip is academical, he tells his class that his best friend from school, Atticus Hoye (Jeremy Irvine), is hosting a house party in Cornwall. Susan being stern and suspicious of Alfie comes with the group, forcing the students to go to environmental attraction the Eden Project, while there Mitchell picks a "natural laxative" plant, Alfie uses it to spike Susan's drink. The class continue to Penleven Castle where they see John the Baptist's foreskin, Susan begins to feel the effects of the laxative, leaving the class unattended to go to the toilet, while away Mitchell steals the foreskin, Alfie retrieves it when it is almost lost, unable to return the foreskin to its case he is forced to eat it to cover his tracks, Joe replaces it with a pork scratching. The group arrives at the fishing town of Port Jago, Alfie and the children sneak out from their hotel to the local pub, there the barman Don (Steve Speirs) and Pasco Trevelyan (Iain Glen) are discussing the Cornish Liberation Army, a terrorist organisation fighting for Cornish independence, they are both members. When Alfie and the class arrive, Alfie is mistaken as a member when Pasco sees the unfinished "CLA" tattoo, Pasco has a plan to assassinate local MP Michael Hoye (Colin Matthews), a friend of Atticus' father, Pasco overhears Alfie talking about the Hoye house party, Alfie and the class get involved in the pub frivolities, it gets out of hand when Joe is stabbed in the hand. Susan catches them and records the incident, but before she can report it, Pasco slips her sleeping pills, packs her in a trunk, and ships her to Cherbourg, France. Pasco take the class to a strip club, where he asks Alfie to deliver some cannabis to the house party, the truck he is supposed to deliver is actually full of explosives, meanwhile Susan hitches a lift back to the UK, with some illegal immigrants. Back at the school, the teachers have lost contact with the Cornwall trip since Susan went missing, so Martin, Fra$er, and Rosie travel to Cornwall to find them. Alfie and the children arrive at the party, Alfie is bullied by his so-called friends and made to teabag a swan, feeling betrayed by everyone, he calls Pasco to pick him up, but this call is a signal to detonate the truck, the Hoye house is blown up. Pasco drives Pasco and the students to Port Jago, Pasco decides to make Alfie the leader of the Cornish rebellion, many people from the pub and Port Jago show up, revealing themselves as members of the CLA. Meanwhile the other teachers searching for Alfie and the class have called the police to help, they call in Interpol thinking it as being a serious situation, they conclude Alfie has been radicalised, Susan and the other parents join the operation. The dozens of CLA members crowd at Penleven Castle, Alfie sabotages the rebellion, but expresses sympathy for Pasco's cause, Pasco turns violent and traps the class, the children find a secret passage leading to the beach to escape, but Alfie has a sword fight with Pasco. In the end, Rosie and Fra$er arrive in a helicopter and rescue Alfie, Pasco is arrested, it forwards to results day, Mitchell puts magic mushrooms into chocolate brownies, Alfie is again inebriated and hallucinates, resulting in a very unusual 'Leavers Photograph'. Also starring Nikki Runeckles as Chantelle Parsons, Weruche Opia as Cleopatra Ofoedo, Layton Williams as Stephen Carmichael, Jack Binstead as Leslie "Rem Dogg" Remmington, Talulah Riley as Phoebe, Clarke Peters as Commander Andrews, Marc Wootton as Officer Geoffrey, Steve Oram as Officer Rowe and Greg James. Whitehall is energetic as the childish, haphazard teacher, and he does a reasonable job of writing the script, as with many feature film adaptations of TV shows it tries to be bigger, getting out and about and being more over the top, most of the jokes are lewd pratfalls and gross bits, they don't all hit the mark, but fans of the series will have fun, a reasonable comedy. Worth watching!
Kieran Battams
Okay, so going into this film i had seen just two episodes of the series so wasn't that familiar with the characters. The show has made me laugh though so i knew that it was at least funny. British sitcoms being translated to the big screen can be very hit or miss, i was hoping it would be funny even with a loose plot like The Inbetweeners Movie or Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and it delivered.Jack Whitehall returns as brilliant as ever as the bad influence teacher Alfie Wickers. Bad Education follows the British comedy trend of taking its characters on holiday, this time in the form of a mental school trip to Cornwall. As you can imagine, this leads to crazy antics. It sounds like more of the same, there is a good twist towards the end though. I don't want to ruin it as it wasn't in the trailers or anything and is actually unexpected. This twist got a bit silly towards the end, but the whole film is pretty silly so it isn't so silly that it completely takes you out of the film. I doubt this will get an international release, but if it does i don't think it is one that will appeal to an American audience. In an interview Jack Whitehall said that exact same thing, the humour is so British, and British at its finest. There are a lot of Jack Whitehall's balls though. I don't ever want to see his balls again. Although, this film features the single most intense scene of a man teabagging a swan EVER. I was genuinely scared for the guy.As a fan of the show, i'm sure you will be delighted to see all the characters on the screen again. Actors from Matthew Horne to Harry Enfield reprise their roles and all of the class are here to. They all get moments to shine as well which i like to see in a film with so many characters. In the end, i haven't laughed harder at a film this year. The plot isn't anything complicated, we have seen this sort of humour before, but as a British person if you don't come out of this film feeling you have had even a little bit of a good time then i will be surprised. I advise anyone up for a good laugh to check out the Bad Education movie, it may be silly, but a film with an opening that is an ET spoof featuring Anne Frank deserves to be seen.
