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The School for Good and Evil sees two brothers – Rafal and Rhian (both played by Kit Young) – having shared power peacefully for eons, but things seldom stay as they are…
For best friends Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie), the former wants to be part of the Good school, writes an application letter, and… puts it inside the Wishing Tree (Well, it’s one way to get around the Royal Mail strike). As for Agatha, she doesn’t want Sophie to leave.
You travel to the school via rather unorthodox means, and I’ll say no more than seen in the trailer, but while Sophie wants the Good school (for the Evers), she gets the Evil one (for the Nevers). Meanwhile, Agatha ends up in the Good one. Both are opulent and palatial, both seeing you arrive after being dropped from a great height.
The Evil crowd end up in dirty water, while if you’re Good, then you land amongst the roses.
There’s a few laughs along the way, such as when Sophie meets classmate Hort (Earl Cave), says his name “sounds like something you cough up”, and he replies, “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me”; while Agatha gets harrassed by angry fairies.
Of the rest of the cast, Mark Heap plays a demanding teacher, acting a bit like his mad character from Friday Night Dinner, but here, he’s gone even more mad without Wilson, or Milson. His class is “Ugly class”, while Agatha has “Beauty class”. There’s also Kerry Washington, plus big names in Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett, Laurence Fishburne and Charlize Theron (who’s clearly watching too much of Crystal Tipps and Alistair, given the haircut), but the individual roles aren’t particularly fleshed out beyond mere surface detail.
The School of Good and Evil is more teenage/fantasy YA nonsense which is pretty predictable. In fact, it feels less like a coherent movie, and more like a collection of disparate scenes.
Naturally, no spoilers, but again, you presume that I even understand much of what I watched.
Whatever will happen, the two girls just want to reunite and head home, or can they find a way to stay in school?
Either way, at 147 minutes, The School of Good and Evil rambles on way too long, and feels like we’ve been here 1000 times before. It has some nice CGI, but that’s about it. The whole concept is completely ridiculous, and normally ends up as a 10-part series, but somehow, is a movie. Unless we get a sequel in due course.
However, during the credits, when you get the ‘crawl’ of the names up the screen, I like how they move about a bit, as they go. You’ll see when you watch it, before you suddenly think I’ve gone mad in this description.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
The School of Good and Evil is on Netflix from today, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 147 minutes
Release date: October 19th 2022
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
Score: 3/10
Director: Paul Feig
Producers: Paul Feig, Laura Fischer, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Joe Roth, Jane Startz
Screenplay: Soman Chainani, David Magee
Novel: Soman Chainani
Music: Theodore Shapiro
Cast:
Sophie: Sophia Anne Caruso
Agatha: Sofia Wylie
Voice of the Storian: Cate Blanchett
Professor Dovey: Kerry Washington
Lady Lesso: Charlize Theron
School Master: Laurence Fishburne
Professor Anemone: Michelle Yeoh
Tedros: Jamie Flatters
Rafal / Rhian: Kit Young
Yuba: Peter Serafinowicz
Stefan: Rob Delaney
Professor Manley: Mark Heap
Mrs. Deauville: Patti LuPone
Honora: Rachel Bloom
Harvid: Harvey Scrimshaw
Hort: Earl Cave
Millicent: Rosie Graham
Chaddick: Ali Khan
Tristan: Oliver Watson
Hester: Freya Parks
Beatrix: Holly Sturton
Vanessa: Stephanie Siadatan
Chinen: Chinenye Ezeudu
Cayla: Olivia Booth-Ford
Anadil: Demi Isaac Oviawe
Joelle: Joelle
Reena: Briony Scarlett
Tarquin: Misia Butler
Dot: Kaitlyn Akinpelumi
Kiko: Emma Lau
Leonora: Abigail Stones
Shadow Creature / Wolf Guard: Malik Ibheis
Fairies: Naomi Weijand, Petra Hajduk, Louis McMiller, Ayo Jordan
Reaper: Ben Aycrigg
Evil Cupid: Steven Calvert
Nicholas: Myles Kamwendo
Young Agatha: Mahli Perry
Wish Girl: Shanti Deen Ellis
Wolf Guard: Callum Henson
Footman: Liam Woon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.