Review in a Hurry: Eighties baby and breakdancing aficionado Jamie Kennedy wakes up in modern times after a 20-year coma. He may as well be an alien from the planet Innocence, which is why it's so much fun to watch this human ET in parachute pants turn on his friends' heart lights.
The Bigger Picture: This is the kind of movie in which a grown man convinces his parents to let him breakdance by reciting, in earnest, the lyrics from the Diff'rent Strokes theme song. It's also the kind of movie in which a fat guy in a bra gets felt up by three guys at once. Me oh my, critics are gonna piss all over Skool—much the way a homeless old geyser in the movie pisses all over people. And you know what? That's kind of the point: This movie is as fun and dumb as a 1987 school talent show where everyone really was a winner, pre-American Idol-style voting.
The movie begins at a talent show like that, where a kid named Justin Schumacher is having a great day. He's got his breakdancing troup, the Funky Fresh Boyz. The girl of his dreams has just kissed him and given him a lucky charm (a Smurfette statuette) and agreed to hang out after the show and chosen him over a jerk named Kip Unger. Alas, it ain't meant to be. Justin falls splat off the stage and goes into a coma. Twenty years later, Jamie Kennedy is playing Justin, who comes splat out of the coma just as his parents (fun-loving Debra Jo Rupp and Christopher McDonald) are about to pull the plug.
So here we are, living vicariously through a 12-year-old in a 32-year-old man's body, a guy who doesn't understand why there are girls fighting and crying on MTV instead of music. Step one is to hunt down the Funky Fresh Boyz and convince them to fight off their cynicism, escape the cubicle and get the group back together. Oh, he's also got to get the girl (Maria Menounos), who, of course, is engaged to the jerk that tormented Jamie back in the day (Michael Rosenbaum, who nails it).
Yeah, the plot is cheesy, but I like Velveeta every now and then, especially when it isn't attempting to be anything other than, you know, cheese.
Nostalgia is inherently kind of goofy. We romanticize the past, we swoon for Smurfs and REO Speedwagon ballads. Skool isn't the top dog when it comes to solid narrative, but it dances up on you with such an innocent, unself-conscious smile that you (critics excluded) want to hug it.
The 180—a Second Opinion: If they had spent more time polishing the script and less time hunting down vintage parachute pants, everyone involved in Kickin' could have really kicked some fun '80s ass. Instead, they dance—and dance around a predictable plot—but never really step it up.