The School of Good and Evil (2022)

The School of Good and Evil (2022)

 

3/10

 

Starring

Sophia Anne Caruso

Sofia Wylie

Laurence Fishburne

Kerry Washington

Charlize Theron

 

Directed by Paul Feig

 

I’ll give the movie one thing: I didn’t see some things coming. It looked predictable, but in the end, all my predictions were wrong. That aside, the movie is just another attempt at creating a franchise by remixing old fairy tales. Unfortunately, it has a habit of forgetting its own characters, overplaying certain moments, and forcing emotions between characters that never existed in the first place.

It’s poorly written, and the casting is hit or miss. Some of the casting choices worked well, while others made me wish I could smash the screen whenever their faces came up.

The movie had an idea: this adventure fantasy would change how we see fairy tale stories. But it failed miserably.

It reminded me of the ABC series Once Upon a Time. For the first five seasons or so, the show did a great job of remixing fairy tales. Then it got carried away with its own ideas, sinking into never-ending arcs and repetitive plotlines that went nowhere. That’s exactly how this movie felt. Even though some character endings weren’t what I expected, the overall plot just kept going in circles.

The story is about two friends, Sophie and Agatha, who live in a town that treats them as outsiders. They always look out for each other and spend much of their time reading stories. Sophie dreams of being like the princesses in those tales, saved by a prince. She desperately wishes to be taken to the School of Good and Evil—a place where fairy tale characters go for their training. The good ones enroll in the School of Good, and the bad ones in the School of Evil.

One day, as Sophie and Agatha are walking, a creature shows up to take Sophie. Sophie believes this is her chance to finally fulfill her dream of going to the School of Good and becoming a princess. But Agatha isn’t about to let a creature take her friend, so she holds on tightly, trying to free her. Instead, the creature takes them both.

Agatha is far from thrilled about this turn of events. Sophie, on the other hand, is ecstatic convinced she’s headed to the School of Good with her friend. But here comes the twist: Sophie gets dumped into the School of Evil, while Agatha ends up in the School of Good.

From there, the movie spirals into an endless mess. The two girls are determined to get Sophie into the School of Good, while an old, evil magical man tries to maintain the status quo to gain more power.

Leave it to Netflix to spend a fortune on casting and effects, only to ruin everything with a weak script.

And, of course, the movie ends in the most stupidly predictable way possible: the veil between the two worlds is torn.