Richard Linklater has made movies I loved (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life) and movies I hated (Tape) The School of Rock lies somewhere in between. It's a fun movie that treats kids with the respect they deserve (as opposed to treating them with the respect their parents think is proper), and Jack Black is ... he's well cast. Linklater manages (barely) to keep Black under just enough control to maintain a semblance of an actual movie, mostly by sticking to a pretty standard plot (well, standard once you get past the part where ten-year-olds are playing AC/DC). The School of Rock is to Richard Linklater as the Spy Kids franchise is to Robert Rodriguez, a family film from a director known for riskier material.

The thing is, why try to keep Jack Black under control in a movie about rock and roll? I'm reminded of the movie version of Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I don't recall who said it, but one of the Mad Dogs who participated in the Joe Cocker tour that became Mad Dogs and Englishmen noted upon seeing that the film was rated GP (the PG of its day), "well, they're gonna have to leave a lot of stuff out of that movie." School of Rock is about the most innocuous PG-13 movie imaginable, and since it's the school of ROCK rather than the school of EASY LISTENING, well, let's just say they left a lot of stuff out of that movie.

The whole thing is epitomized by the film's position on 21st century rock and roll: it's not worth listening to. Neither is hip-hop, neither is anything that came after 70s classic rock. AC/DC, Deep Purple, Led Zep, those are the touchstones on which the film rests. As someone, again I don't recall who, but I read it so it must exist, as someone said of the movie, "Somebody get that guy some Sleater-Kinney CDs!"

And yet, here I am, giving it a seven on a scale of ten.