Detention (2012)

So much average

Just perfect...

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's Grizzly Lake High School. Taylor Fisher is a BITCH. The head cheerleader gets murdered by a killer. Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) is a social activist feminist. She has a crush on her childhood friend Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson) from across the street who is going out with her former friend, self-obsessed, new head cheerleader Ione Foster (Spencer Locke). An ax-wielding killer dressed like movie character Cinderhella comes after Riley but nobody believes her. Billy Nolan is a bully, Ione's ex with fly-powers who wants to fight Clapton. There's also a magnetic UFO time-traveling bear in the hallway. When Billy is killed, principal Karl Verge (Dane Cook) puts the kids in detention.It's a satirical mishmash of 80s and 90s movies. It's big words, rapid-fire dialogue, close-up filming, and outlandish writing. The movie is trying extremely hard. It never really gets funny. It's also trying to do too much and jamming too much into this manic story. Shanley Caswell is a cute girl but she's not lead girl material. Josh Hutcherson is a cute guy but he's not jock material. Joseph Kahn and Mark Palermo's comedic credentials are questionable at best. The ambition is high but the execution is too scattered.

You wouldn't think it looking at the poster but this film is a little unknown gem I almost skipped. It's made by Music video director Joseph Kahn (he also directed Torque - there is a joke in the film referring to it) and you can tell coz this film is fast paced and has lots of cool shooting angles and scene transitions and has a very colorful look. It mixes horror, science fiction and comedy in a way that totally works. I actually laughed more during this film than with any 'real' comedy I saw the last 10 years. There are also plenty of 90's film references for movie buffs. If you have to criticize you could say this film is sometimes a bit too dense and overloaded and the plot at one point gets a bit out of hand and begins to trip over itself. But all that hardly matters, you'll have a good time watching this and isn't that why we watch movies in the first place? Highly recommended!

Well, this movie was an insult to the craft. I have never actually seen a movie that is worse than this one, and I've seen lot of movies. Just this week, I watched Scary or Die, Taken 3 and Patrick: Evil Awakens. These movies are, by no means, good, but they didn't make me ashamed to admit that I enjoy film. This movie, however, did. Before I continue, I'd like to say that there was much more wrong with the movie than 1000 words can hold.For starters, it is trying to be the Scream of our generation. The stereotypical teenagers being killed off one by one, constantly referencing movies, and pointing out clichés. This movie though, was absolutely terrible. The characters were unlikeable, and unbearably predictable. The visual effects were cool to a certain extent, but they couldn't even afford to break real glass. Here's where I'll get into the REALLY crappy aspects of the movie. Time travel. It's a thing. And I won't go into much detail, but let me just say: It makes no damn sense.Well, I'm running out of characters to use, but another HUGE issue about this movie has not yet been brought to light. One of our characters is part fly. Why? It actually serves no purpose in this story. He pukes acid, can sprout wings, and is super strong (a typical fly trait). We are led to believe that this will at some point come back as a plot point, but he gets butchered soon after this realization comes to light. Seriously.So, watch Detention if you so wish, but be prepared for shockingly poor acting, predictable story progression, nonsensical plot, serious plot-point abandonment, and really BAD character names.All in all, this is the worst movie that I've seen in years. And I have seen Patrick: Evil Awakens.

The entire film felt like the director was showcasing his taste in popular culture. Absolutely no value to a mainstream audience.Thin plot, generic characters, and whimsy instead of an actual coherent storyline. For the most part, it was just clichéd references to films that are actually better than the one you're watching.We only watched it because it appeared in the horror section of Netflix, but it turned out to be much more horrifying than we expected. If it weren't for all the janky side stories, the main plot about the serial killer would have lasted around 20 minutes. And I wish it did.Extremely boring trash marketed towards nineties kids who jack off over corded land-line phones.