Disclaimer:  The views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent those of allgames.com.

Introduction to Night School Movie Review by Ms. H

I did not rush out to see Night School when it opened mainly because I’ve seen so many other movies with a similar synopsis.  I knew initially Kevin Hart’s character would struggle with night school, have a strict teacher and ultimately graduate. No surprises here. That is the storyline of the movie in a nutshell. However, since I finally saw Night School, I would like to share with everyone exactly what I thought of this movie. By the way, I saw Night School on a Sunday night, and the theater was almost empty except for a few people, including myself. That may or may not be telling about the interest level in this movie after it was released for a few days.

A Kevin Hart Production -  The Night School Movie

On a positive note -- Congratulations are in order for Kevin Hart, the comedian for producing his own movie.  I saw a few talk shows where he discussed leaving the position of a work for hire actor and becoming a partnership business with the movie studios.  My hats off to him for doing this, as well as bringing the comedian TIffany Haddish with him to star in the movie Night School.

Comedy in the Night School Movie

Unfortunately, as a comedy, I believe Night School missed its mark.  I knew Kevin Hart would play basically the same character he plays in every movie -- but I expected a few laugh out loud moments.  This did not happen. Even Tiffany Haddish came off as being brazen, loud and boisterous in her role instead of being hilariously funny. Additionally,  the supporting characters were not funny or humorous to me.  Of course, what is considered humorous is subjective; however, try as hard as I could, I could not wrangle a truly funny moment from Night School or remember a funny line from the movie.  

It’s not that Kevin Hart did not attempt to make a funny movie. I really believed he tried.  I knew Night School was going downhill after the movie showed inappropriate scenes in order to try to get laughs -- namely there was a case of bodily functions as well as actually vomiting.  In my opinion, these scenes were distasteful rather than funny. Whenever a movie results to slapstick or otherwise obnoxious humor, you know the writer has run out of truly funny material.

A Matter of Intellect and the Night School Movie Synopsis

During the Night School movie , Kevin Hart’s character, Teddy Walker was viewed as someone who is more or less mentally challenged. Even though the movie shows that he has a fraternal twin sister who is intelligent, I think it was a disservice to show him as being basically unable to learn -- at least in the beginning. I personally would have liked for his mental challenge of having some sort of dyslexia be brought out initially, instead of the audience thinking that he actual had difficulty or was “slow” in learning.

Also, the movie tried to depict Kevin Hart’s character as having trouble learning by showing math equations, etc. that seem to float out in front of him. Strangely enough, he  tried to physically catch them. I think these scenes were not on point with his problem and could have been demonstrated another way that would resonate with his learning disorder.

During the promotion of the Night School movie, Kevin Hart stated the movie was about second chances -- which I did not have an issue with, as this is a positive message. However, if you see this movie, you will notice that his character was in need of more than one second chance to pass the GED test.  Many will attribute this to his learning disability while others may say that the character he was playing was simply slow. I would have hoped that this movie shined a more positive light on someone who may have to go to Night School in order to get a diploma.

Tiffany Haddish’s Character in the Night School Movie

I think Tiffany Haddish should broaden her acting skills to play different characters for each of her movies. Her characterization in this movie as a night school teacher was similar to the loud, boisterous character she played that brought her recognition in the Girls Trip movie.  She did not expand her range of acting in the Night School movie and if she is not careful -- she may become categorized as a one-trip pony - known for playing the same character in all of her movies similar to Kevin Hart.  In fact, the movie previews showed one of her upcoming films where once again she is playing a loud, boisterous, uncouped character.

Additionally, during the movie some of her lines were not befitting of a teacher.  For example, on several occasions she called students by profane names as well as other derogatory terms such as hefer, etc.  I also did not get the point of her using violence as a learning tool -- even if it was probably done for perceived comedic purposes.

I think the movie would have been just a tad bit believable if her character had acted more like a genuine teacher instead of being a bully, continually insulting and inflicting violence upon her student. Of course, during the end of the movie, her character did a 360 degree turn -- but by this time, she had already established herself as an untrained night school teacher.

Assessment of the Night School Movie

There is literally nothing entertaining to see here relative to Kevin Hart’s movie, Night School.  Even though I liked the diversity of characters in his movie, I must say that looking back on the movie, I did not find anything funny about the storyline.

All was not lost though.  In my opinion, the highlight of the movie was when the night school class went to a Prom attended by regular students on the spur of the moment. In this segment there were music, comradery with everyone dancing and seemingly having a fun time.  Other than that, I would venture to say, if you missed the Night School Movie -- don’t fret, because you really did not miss much. Overall, I found the NIght School movie to be cliche, slapstick, ordinary and most importantly not the least bit funny.

 Just a footnote here -- I was unable to use MoviePass to see Night School, but I had a free movie ticket. Even though a small part of my time may have been lost by seeing the movie, Night School, at least I did not lose any money on a movie ticket.

Rating of the Night School Movie

Based on a rating of 1 star to 5 stars, with 5 stars being the highest, I rate Night School 1 3/4 stars.