Producers: Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Laura Fischer, Paul Feig and Jane Startz Director: Paul Feig Screenplay: David Magee and Paul Feig Cast: Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Flatters, Kit Young, Peter Serafinowicz, Rob Delaney, Mark Heap, Patti LuPone, Rachel Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron, Earl Cave, Freya Parks, Holly Sturton and Ally Cubb Distributor: Netflix
Grade: C-
In the seemingly endless search for a new Harry Potter-like franchise, Netflix stumbled onto the fantasy YA book series by Soman Chainani; this film is an adaptation of the first of its six volumes. Though the budget is being kept under wraps, it was obviously a pretty pricey project. Still, the streaming service honchos probably thought it a good investment, since if successful with the target audience of pre-teens and teens, it could spawn numerous sequels, not to mention associated merchandising. It’s unlikely the gamble will pay off, however, since whatever the movie cost it’s still apposite to call “The School for Good and Evil” a very low-rent version of Hogwarts.
The first and most basic weakness of the movie is its confusing, over-complicated plot, reflected in a running-time of nearly two-and-a-half hours. True, the films in the Potter franchise were long, but they took time to establish the characters and clarify the rules of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World as well as its atmosphere. By contrast Paul Feig’s take on Chainani’s unimaginatively named establishment feels simultaneously sluggish and rushed, crammed with characters that make barely an impression, extraneous episodes that just weigh the narrative down and a welter of special-effects action more tedious than awesome. By the two-hour mark you’ll feel like a student eager for the bell signaling the end of class to ring.
The film begins with the narrator, later called the Storian, telling us how the school was founded by two brothers, Rhian and Rafal (both played by Kit Young) as a means of keeping the forces of good and evil in balance by training future heroes and villains. In a dueling exercise, however, Rafal, who had turned to dark magic, tried to kill Rhian, only to apparently be killed himself. (The Storian, by the way, is voiced by Cate Blanchett, only one of a quite starry cast, but she’s fortunate in that she doesn’t actually have to appear in the flesh, being represented as an invisible hand using a quill pen to write down the tale in a book. Her writing is beautifully calligraphic, though.)
With evil Rafal out of the way, the Storian turns her attention to two girls who are best friends living in the grubby confines of a medieval town called Gavaldon. Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) is a golden-haired orphan anxious to get out of the stifling place to fulfill her destiny, while Agatha (Sofia Wylie) is a tomboyish type with frizzy curls from the wrong side of the hill. Both, however, are taunted as witches by the town bullies.
Sophie pleads at the local wishing tree to be taken to the titular school, which she and Agatha have been told about by a shopkeeper named Deauville (Patti LuPone), and soon a huge, grotesque bird arrives to whisk her away; Agatha hangs on to protect her friend. The duo is deposited at the school, but a mistake seems to have been made. Sophie, who dreams of being a princess, is dumped in the School for Evil, whose occupants, the Nevers, are overseen by Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron, dressed like a Nazi and outfitted in a hideous fright wig), while Agatha unaccountably winds up in the School for Good, where the beatific Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington) presides over the Evers, and is compelled to take lessons in such subjects as smiling under Professor Anemone (Michelle Yeoh). The girls protest that a mistake has been made in the assignments, but the Master of the School (Laurence Fishburne) assures them that’s impossible. He does, however, offer a possible way out: if Sophie can secure her true love’s kiss, it will be prove she belongs among the Evers.
Sophie decides that her true love is Tedros (Jamie Flatters), the son of King Arthur, who wields Excalibur and is the stalwart among the Evers knights, as well as the figure around whom all the Evers girls, including ultra-pretty Beatrix (Holly Sturton) congregate. Tedros, however, takes a shine to the spirited Agatha, even after she berates him for killing Gregor (Ally Cubb), the shy, fearful son of Prince Charming, who was transformed into a birdlike beast after his third failure in a test of courage given by the giant gnome Yuba (Peter Serafinowicz).
Meanwhile Sophie’s underlying evil powers have been revealed in struggles during Professor Morley’s (Mark Heap) Ugliness class against rival students, arrogant Hester (Freya Parks) and bumbling Hort (Earl Cave). Nevertheless she still hopes to secure the kiss of true love from Tedros, and undergoes a trial with him to prove that they do indeed belong together. Unfortunately, Agatha intervenes in the ensuing battle with the hideous Reaper to save Tedros; disgusted by Sophie’s refusal to help him, he disavows any further interest in her, and Sophie blames her friend for the collapse of her dream.
Now falling inexorably under the influence of Rafal, who in fact is not dead, Sophie grows more and more villainous, until, transformed into an old hag, she manipulatively engineers a war between the Evers and her fellow Nevers that will destroy the Good and usher in a rule of Evil. She eventually realizes her mistake and helps Agatha to defeat Rafal using Excalibur, but is herself mortally wounded. Sophie is revived, though, when Agatha kisses her. As in “Maleficent,” this kiss of true love comes not necessarily from a prince, or any man. What this new topos means culturally might be the subject of several doctoral theses, though hardly from this “School.”
All this is merely the tip of the iceberg; the narrative adds many more twists, swerves and complications to this simplified précis of the overstuffed, undercooked scenario Magee and Feig fashioned from Chainani’s book. The result is unwieldy and clumsy, growing ever more ponderously dull as it drags on. That’s despite all the swordfights (choreographed by Walter Garcia) and visual effects, ranging from CGI creatures to the usual weaponized shafts and balls of light, provided by an army of technicians supervised by Erik Nordby. Nor do the occasional dance sequences or the use of contemporary pop songs on the soundtrack to accompany Theodore Shapiro’s overemphatic score alleviate the feeling of heaviness.
Otherwise the picture is lavishly made, though the visuals—the production design by Andy Nicholson and costumes by Renée Ehrlich Kalfus—while extravagant, seem curiously tacky. John Schwartzman’s cinematography favors dark images, which often muddies the action while failing to give things the brooding, menacing quality that was probably intended. Brent White’s editing can’t sustain a consistent tempo, but that’s because the spasmodic script won’t allow one.
As to the cast, Wylie is agreeably extroverted but little more. Caruso has the tougher row to hoe, gravitating from early effervescence to exaggerated nastiness by the close, and frankly she doesn’t seem comfortable trying to navigate the change. The starrier adults go the camp route, descending into simple caricature; overall it’s a fairly embarrassing showing, although Peter Serafinowicz does so deplorable a vaudeville turn as the giant-sized gnome that the others seem positively restrained by comparison. The rest of the youngsters are adequate at best, with Flatters persuading us too easily of Tedros’ combination of unmerited confidence and general incompetence.
Given its current financial difficulties, it would be unwise to imagine Netflix ponying up the funding for further installments in this expensive series, though a coda tells us to expect at least one. Few viewers are likely to be salivating at the thought of a continuation.