The School for Good and Evil

The School for Good and Evil

Best friends Sophie and Agatha navigate an enchanted school for young heroes and villains — and find themselves on opposing sides of the battle between good and evil.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Comedy, Fantasy
  • Stars: Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Flatters, Kit Young, Peter Serafinowicz, Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron, Earl Cave, Rachel Bloom, Mark Heap, Patti LuPone, Freya Parks, Demi Isaac Oviawe, Kaitlyn Akinpelumi, Briony Scarlett, Cate Blanchett, Joelle, Ali Khan, Rob Delaney, Liam Woon, Stephanie Siadatan, Adam Ray, Olivia Booth-Ford, Emma Lau, Chinenye Ezeudu, Harvey Scrimshaw, Misha Butler, John Macdonald, Shanti Deen-Ellis, Ben Aycrigg
  • Director: Paul Feig
 Comments
  • abule - 28 March 2024
    Shockingly great movie
    When I started watching it I was expecting it to be a basic movie for teenagers with mediocre acting and costumes. In the end I was absolutely shocked how good the movie was. The acting of the young actors was amazing. Usually costumes in fantasy movies look artifical but not here. They looked very much realistic and in my opinion perfect for the story line. I know that this movie is based on a book. Unfortunately I have not read it so I can not comment about the accuracy. For a person who only has seen the movie story line felt natural. It was smoothly flowing without starting more storylines that would later on be rushed to be finished which I usually hate in a movie. The only thing that was not good was CGI, it was very much artifical, that is why my rating is 9 out of 10.
  • marcelcox - 2 December 2023
    A movie so bad that it is hilarious
    Sometimes, a movie is so bad, that it becomes funny to watch them just to see how bad it can still get.

    This is one of them. The Story is something between Harry Porter, Wednesday and Shrek. The thing is that is neither of them. It tries to be dark, and it tries to make funny references to well-known fairy tales, and it tries to depict over the top absurd situations. The result is that it neither creates tension, nor is it funny. The story is so poorly written. Things are very predictable, and if something unexpected is happening, you get more a wtf impression than a wow.

    The actors for the 2 main characters are too old. These are young adults trying to play teenagers and it looks so cringy.

    The movie deserves just a 1, but I give it a 3 for the unwanted funny part of it being so bad.
  • sophiakmonsen - 22 July 2023
    Why this was disappointing - a readers perspective
    Firstly, let's start with what went well in the movie. I thought that the set design was lovely - not what I had imagined, for the Good school, but you can't have it all - and the costume design was rather good.

    I should mention that I know this book like the back of my hand. It has been read so many times it's basically in shreds - literally, not figuratively. This alone should give me enough credit to properly break down why this was upsetting to watch.

    Now let's get onto the problems:

    1) Agatha's actor was far too pretty. In the books, Agatha is described as 'homely' and all in all, plain and ugly. She is meant to be unkept and almost confident in how she presents herself, which cements her beginning mindset: "Who cares how I look when they all think I'm a witch anyway?" The casting director didn't have to cast a different actor necessarily, but the fact that she was incredibly clean and had fitting clothes lost her entire message. Oh, so the townspeople think you're a witch? Why? You don't act or look like one, you just live in a graveyard. The lack of a baseline for her confidence, which was incredibly low, made it so that she didn't have anywhere to grow as a character.

    2) Awareness about the school for good and evil. The fact that they didn't know about the school meant that Agatha, again, didn't have the character growth from a 'non-believer' (going against the town) who secretly read books, and Sophie didn't have the motivation to become Agatha's friend, which leads me to my next point...

    3) Sophie and Agatha are childhood friends. This completely diminishes Sophie's potential for evil. In the books, Sophie's only reason for befriending Agatha was for 'Good points', in which she was doing a 'good deed' by becoming friends with the witch at the top of the graveyard. For a reader, this meant that if you ignored all the signs pointing her towards the school for good, it became obvious she was destined for evil.

    4) The School Master. His involvement, again, diminished Sophie's evil actions - which she originally made completely independently - by way of him influencing her. He was actually not all that present in the first book, and if he was, he was very old, and we as the reader were unsure whether he was good or evil. Why have a fight scene with an unknown victor if it is going to be revealed instantly?

    5) Blood magic. To my knowledge, blood magic has never been referenced in the book. For a movie already overpacked with brushed-over information, why add this? It is not true to the book, and implies that Sophie's extremely strong magic is something that can be learnt by anyone.

    6) Professor Sader. His lack of involvement just confused me, mainly about the sequel.

    7) Agatha's make-over scene. Due to a lack of her actually being ugly and shunned by her peers, this vastly important scene, which influenced the rest of the book heavily, was barely memorable. What was once Agatha finding confidence in herself, without the need of an actual make-over due to Dovey's wand breaking at the request, meant nothing. It also meant it was for no reason that Sophie began to embrace evil, which I'm sure to first time enjoyers of the SGE, seemed random and pointless.

    8) The small things. For example, Anadil and Tedros' casting. Why would they make a starved-looking albino villain larger than Dot was meant to be, and certainly... darker? They had one job. Also, it was just a small thing that irked me, but I think that if you can't get the basic details of a character correct, then it most likely means the people who worked on the film didn't care about the source material.

    9) The lack of a proper fight was irritating. This amazing battle between quickly-changing good and evil students, drowned by Sophie and getting thrown out of a hall was something I could literally only imagine, and now it will never be realised.

    The reason I love this book, and book series is because of the ever growing, ever changing characters, and the complex plot that means I can read it nearly ten years from when I first bought it a remember a plot point that I had forgotten (which I rarely do with books). With a plot this complicated, it would have benefitted vastly from a series, not a simultaneously drawn out but rushed film. I would have been content if half of the first book had been made into one series.

    While I once admired Soman Chainani's creativity, I think it goes too far when he says that his adaptation was less of an adaptation and more of a retelling. No. You wrote the book fans love, fans don't want to see an arguably worse retelling, and frankly, that's lazy.

    The directing was average, the editing was rather bad, and the rest of the movie was just 'meh'. The plot dragged this average movie back down into the dirt.

    Of course, I recognise that the SGE cannot be directly adapted, but it would have been nice to see some evidence that an effort was made.

    Not looking forward to the sequel.
  • krissa75 - 30 December 2022
    Tweens might like this ....
    I don't know the source material but I can only hope it is better than this.

    The story is filled with clichés in what ironically aims to be an attempt at subverting these same clichés. Twists, if that's what I should call them, are either dumb or predictable. Like I said in the title: this might appeal to tweens but that's about it.

    The CGI is CW levels of bad and on top of that costumes, make up and sets look cheap.

    Not a single acting performance is better than "meh" and this includes people like Theron, Fishburne, Yeoh and Washington. All of them seem to just be there for the payday. The best performance is by Cate Blanchett as the narrator.
  • silicontourist - 13 December 2022
    Nothing Special Or Exciting But It Is Worth A 1 Time Viewing At Least!
    The usual lighting and camera is very good and the assemblage all look very good in their multiple various modes of attire. The CGI is excellent also (but in this day and age you wouldn't expect any less so).

    The overall problem for me is that it has absolutely no appeal for the viewer -IMHO- insomuch as their is just nothing, or anyone, to attach to or take interest in. The characters are less than what is needed to hold an audiences attention (though I would say here that a younger female audience will probably view this a whole lot differently) and, they are insipidly drab and uninteresting!

    Its a film that will be completely forgotten about within a very short space of a viewers timeline!
  • ad8899 - 27 November 2022
    Fantastic
    Come on, what else could you want from a movie? Great camp from the famous actors, great effects, great costumes, totally fantastic fairytale storyline. The girls are the heroes, it's a diverse cast - including a few larger actors (finally! More please!), and empathy and love are the strongest superpowers. I am an adult woman, and I would have loved to have had heroines like this to emulate in my youth. I don't know anything about the book or books, I just enjoyed it for what it was. Loved the emphasis on people being human, not a perfect good or perfect bad. Hope they make more in this series.
  • koimadd - 20 November 2022
    Good for a weekend Popcorn with the kiddos
    Some of the negative reviewers sound like a bunch of Siscel and Ebert wannabee. Is this movie Oscar material? NO. But it is fun and charming to enjoy with the kids or just o watch it by yourself as a good night time entertainment, while being able to stay at home in your PJs. Yes. So sit down and enjoy the movie for watch it is. Entertainment. Don't nit pick it to death and you may just enjoy the heck out of it. It's a fantasy movie based on the fairy tales we all grew up with with a twist. Its got a decent soundtrack if you like the pop music. The casting is good with famous headliners and some newbies that we may see in the future. Coarumes are good and the CGInisnt the best but I seen so much worse. But given it a go and if you have an open.mind youay just enjoy it.