Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

zardoz-13 The murky conclusion of director Steven Pearl's straight-to-video sequel "The Substitute 2: School's Out" undercuts an otherwise okay sequel that goes to enormous ends to establish itself as the follow-up to the Tom Berenger original. Treat Williams plays an entirely different character who knew Shale, and "School's Out" concerns his search for the person who gunned down his brother in cold blood in broad daylight. Williams is suave but decisive as Karl Thomasson who masquerades as the new substitute teacher. B.D. Wong is superb as the slimy villain. The Miami high school in the first film, the school here is a zoo with abrasive students who play their boom boxes in class and tote around deadly weapons like ice picks. Unlike the villains in the predecessor who were trafficking in illegal drugs, the bad guys here are operating a chop shop for stolen cars that nets them a $100-thousand-a-month. Like the original, the most considerate character turns out to be the source of the trouble. During the first three-fourths of "The Substitute 2: School's Out," the scenarists of the first movie--Roy Frumkes, Rocco Simonelli, and Alan Ormsby--establish the reason for the sequel, neatly place the characters in the context of the original, and do a good job of integrating Karl into the action. The action scenes themselves, when Karl has to practice his expertise on the disruptive students as well as the adult villains, are fine, but everything collapses in the last quarter hour when the fatherless daughter discovers who killed her father. The filmmakers never have a confrontation scene between the hero and this villain. Moreover, the disruptive students in the classroom who should go down as hard as their counterparts did in the first movie are never shown receiving their just comeuppance for their crimes. The yo-yo scene where Karl explains the use of a yo-yo as a weapon is well-done as is the 'compromise' scene when he toss Mace's purloined boom box out the second story class room. Presumably, Mace is supposed to be the Jerome character here. The single character who doesn't have a counterpart from the first movie is Michael Michele; she plays a sympathetic school employee, Kara Lavelle, who is attracted to Karl. Initially, she met him at his brother's funeral. Not surprisingly, Karl's niece (Susan May Pratt of "Drive Me Crazy")doesn't trust Karl at first, but she breaks down and gets to like him. The only character here that is truly exceptional is the high school custodian, Johnny Bartee (Daryl Edwards of "Arthur 2: On the Rocks"), who has an unique way of entering and exiting through the tunnels in the walls. He is a former Vietnam soldier who specialized in going into tunnels to flush out the Viet Cong. One of the things that the filmmakers do that looks cool is that the car-jacking gang wears their cotton windbreakers backwards so the hood covers them faces and they have slit eye-holes to see. One of the survivors from the first movie, Joey 6, reappears here but he is played by a different actor.

Frank Markland Treat Williams stars as a mercenary who fills in for his brother after said brother is murdered, along the way he finds that all blame points to Drummond (B.D Wong) but Williams' elaborate plan to teach and kickbox his students is put into full effect when Drummond's men find out about him and decide to kill him. Believe it or not I preferred this sequel to the original, only due to the faster pace and a more likable hero in Treat Williams. Williams is one of those versatile actors who can convince in action and convince in the role of being human. Treat Williams acts much like how a real teacher in real life would plus he seems willing to negotiate and make amends for his actions. Such as the scene where Williams offers to pay for the kid's radio that he threw out the radio. There are many good scenes that are quite well acted such as when Williams talks to the class and in all seriousness it works better than the original. Also another element I like is how the action is more under control and the movie develops a more serious take on the plot. Although the one line of which Williams says "I've killed before but I try to not like it, so this is going to be a new experience for me" Is a howler. This makes the movie far more enjoyable than sequels usually are.* * 1/2 out of 4-(Pretty good)

Jim Kirk Hey, it's not great, but it was fun to watch. Played it on BBC1 (UK) on Sat 11 Feb, 23:50. I wasn't planning on watching it, I hadn't heard of it before, nothing much else to do so I left it on.I enjoyed it, so that's more than I was expecting. The story was a little poor, the acting wasn't amazing, but hey, if nothing better is on - watch it! It should keep you busy.There are lots of unrealistic scenes, but it's not supposed to be a highly complex film.I probably wouldn't watch it for a second time. I'll give it a six because it kept me busy for 85 minutes, and there was lots of ghetto talk, MOH F**KER. Haha.

roisterer I am completely aghast that anyone living or dead ever enjoyed this film for the reasons the makers wished. The fact that it was never released in theaters should tip you off in the first place that this movie is quite poorly written, acted and edited. Things happen and you have no idea why, people say and do things that are never explained, certain elements of the story are left vastly untold. In short, many loose ends are not tied up and many more are simply ignored. And if you're thinking that this will be spoofing the fact that it is bad and making jokes, think again. This movie was meant to be an action/adventure type thing, but it ended up being a comedy; and there are no intentional jokes. My advice is, if you want a good laugh at an excessively bad film, rent this, otherwise, don't waste your money.