High School

Anchor Bay 2012

Popcorn sales will go through the roof when High School opens in theatres June 1^st 2012. This is a fun stoner comedy starring Matt Bush as the straight-laced kid and Sean Marquette as the stoner friend. Anyone familiar with the genre will immediately recognize the usual tropes such as the fascist and incompetent principal, the perpetually stoned slackers, and so on. What makes this comedy work better than most is it embraces the fact is is a stoner comedy –that also explains why it is a bit unfocused.

When Charlene Phuc loses the state spelling bee because she is stoned, Morgan High principal Gordon (a totall unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) decides to drug test all his students. Unfortunately, he announces this decision on the same day future valedictorian and MIT student Henry (Bush) gets high for the first time. Travis, his childhood pal and a veteran stoner, decides the solution is if everyone gets stoned everyone will fail the drug test and Henry will be off the hook. To achieve this the guys steal some primo stuff from Psycho Ed (Adrian Brody), bake pot brownies, and replace the PTA Betty Crocker brownies with Pretty Crocked brownies (my own joke and I am proud of it).

Of course, things go wrong. That’s the last two-thirds of High School. The pot brownies are too powerful, Psycho Ed is out for revenge against those who stole his primo stuff, and the guys must find the tape of them switching the brownies.

The one weak element in High School is neither Henry and Travis nor actors Bush and Marquette are particularly interesting. This creates a lack of energy that eventually gets in the way of really enjoying this movie.

Also, as stoner movies go this one has an extremely low amount of nudity.

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