Franchises are more important than ever in Hollywood, because it is always easier to try to sell to the public something that already conquered them at the time. What is much more complicated is to start a new film saga that hooks millions of viewers. In Netflix They have been trying for years without finishing finding it.
Your new attempt is ‘The school of good and evil’adaptation of the homonymous novel by Soman Chainani that at all times gave the feeling of wanting to be the new ‘Harry Potter’, something that is confirmed once seen. The problem is that when it comes down to it, it almost seems more like a lavish Disney Channel production, and not even a particularly memorable one.
Simple or simple?
As its own title suggests, the new feature film directed by Paul Feig (‘Spies’) plays at all times with the dichotomy between good and evil, already focusing on it from that prologue that seeks to be exciting and ends up bordering on the ridiculous, both in what it dramatically proposes and in the visual finish of certain details .
Once that is saved, ‘The school of good and evil’ opts for a more youthful approach, both to introduce us to the two great protagonists of the show and to show how they deal with the fact of ending up where none of them expected. That lighter touch is complemented by attempts to create a universe of their own, halfway between Harry Potter and the Disney Princesses, which work better in specific details than in their entirety.
All in all, the film has a little bit of cheekiness that helps it rise above a central story that has been seen a thousand times and that does not provide us with the slightest surprise during its more than two hours of footage. This is helped by the delivery of Sofia Wylie and Sophia Anne Caruso in the two main roles, because neither of them may offer a great performance, but they do know how to find that point of freshness so that the obvious and predictable do not bother so much.
It is true that the narrative is fluid -although perhaps a little rushed-, so at least one does not get bored, but then there is a problem of focus, because on the one hand a certain purity is sought in that central arc that later it extends to the way of solving the story, but in return there are countless complementary details that sometimes border on the grotesque. That’s where I think mostly the unfortunate use of stereotypes to quickly define the majority of students in the school.
faulty magic
What happens there is that ‘The school of good and evil’ sells a message but applies a different one, sometimes with dubious comic intentions but in general presenting it as a mere exercise in normality. The result is not confusing but it is somewhat contradictory and it further limits the scope of a film that when push comes to shove is content to grab one or two ideas and see how far it can go with them. I already anticipate that not very far.
For its part, the visual section conforms more to the appearance of being showy than to have a clearer idea of what own identity wants to have. This is especially evident in the scenes where the visual effects have a greater presence, all of them marked by a somewhat annoying preference for the monotonous. Perhaps because they don’t have a larger budget to allow themselves to be more ambitious? I do not rule. And it is not that Feig does much to improve it in a film in which I am not very clear that it contributes anything remarkable to the final result. It is that even when the movie tries to be funny it stops being mediocre.
Somewhat more inspired is its adult cast, especially a playful Charlize Theron It shows how much fun she is having giving life to the leader of the school of evil. Also Michelle Yeoh has a scene to unleash, while Kerry Washington more than fulfills as the leader of the school of good. Of course, the weight of all of them is reduced and it is not that they illuminate the screen with their appearances, but at least something animates the function.
In short
‘School for Good and Evil’ lacks the ambition, budget and talent to even come close to playing in the same league as ‘Harry Potter’. I don’t blame Netflix for wanting to have its own long-running fantasy saga -the literary original has six installments and it is very clear that the goal is for the film that concerns us to have sequels- without making an exaggerated investment and then hitting the audience, but what he has given us here, without being a waste of time, is insufficient, both individually and in terms of making us want to know more about this universe.
In Espinof: