New Comedy “General Education” is a General Flop

A frozen yogurt, three packs of gum, a surf magazine, a new book, a cup of coffee with a scone, a bagel, a pack of colorful markers, the new Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros album, two new rolls of film; all things that are under seven dollars. And conveniently all things that would have been a much better use of my seven dollars than paying to see “General Education.”

Let me get one thing straight, I really, really wanted to like this movie. I swear I wanted it to be good. But I have never regretted a single 90 minute period of my life, the same way I did after I watched “General Education”.

This high-definition, low-budget style movie, is a comedy about tennis prodigy Levi Collins, (Chris Sheffield) and his struggle to make it through a summer school science class. He desperately needs to graduate high school without his parents finding out he flunked, and be able to claim his full-ride tennis scholarship to the local university the following year. So ensues a series of trite and immature shenanigans, that involve but are not limited to: a raccoon costume, Mexican fireworks, mimes, bribery, and a car that runs on vegetable oil, all orchestrated by a pyro-crazy group of teenage boys.

I’m never one to snub my nose at smaller or lower budget films. Sometimes the greatest passion and writing is filmed in someone’s backyard, and released to family and friends before it reaches every American’s neighborhood theatre. But this meager attempt at family comedy flopped so badly that it quickly became painful to watch.

To begin, the movie’s plot was rapidly changing, and extremely hard to follow. Characters were thrown at me left and right, with no reason or explanation behind their appearance in the film. Not to mention that these random characters were overdone and boring. Playing off of racial and societal stereotypes, they seemed to fall flat within the film. From “Shady Nick” finishing his ninth year of summer school and living at a trailer park with his mother, to Mr. Collins, a pressuring, out-of-touch, workaholic dad, to Charles, Levi’s 13-year-old genius best friend who can get Levi out of almost any sticky situation.

“General Education” is a movie that desperately tries to be quirky and witty, but just can’t pull it off. It isn’t original enough, using cliche jokes and scenes. It has the awkward small-town factor of “Napoleon Dynamite,” with the high school cruelty of “Mean Girls,” and the friendship dynamic of “Superbad.” The above-mentioned films are serious Hollywood gold. They can make our generation laugh uncontrollably, and are arguably some of the funniest movies of the last 10 years. As much as I loved Michael Cera and Jonah Hill’s constant bicker in “Superbad”, I didn’t want to see it again in “General Education.”

It’s a stretch to say that the film has redeeming qualities. It makes an attempt to touch upon some more serious topics, but butchers them in the execution. Visiting alcoholism and the dysfunctionality of a family with young adults, “General Education” brings light to some heavy concerns in today’s society. I would have been a lot more pleased if the serious scenes aren’t ruined with a corny joke, or an awful line.

In addition to “General Education’s” blatant disregard for sensitive societal issues, it also has the surprising ability to offend every race, religion, gender and creed within the hour and a half. From disability to sexuality, no stone is left unturned. No minority came out of this movie unscathed by some ridiculously dumb joke. I was shocked.

Supposedly this movie is rated PG, but some parts of it are just blatantly offensive and crude. I was constantly cringing from these poor-taste jokes. I found myself wishing that I could have been doing my chemistry homework instead of watching this train wreck of a small film. And take it from me, I will do almost anything to avoid chemistry work.

Kansas is not one of the few states that movie is playing in, so I rented the film on iTunes for $6.99. I would not recommend seeing this movie. It left me with a lot of lost respect for the small film industry. At the end I was feeling confused as to what the film was even really about. The strings weren’t tied up, there was no moral at the end of the story, it just ended. There has to be some rationality for why it is so bad. And yet, people, like me, are paying good money to see it.

Do not see this movie. Spare yourself. “General Education” is a film with the maturity level of a 12-year-olds, and the wit of a rock.