Movie Review: Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

Movie Review: Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life                                                                9-16-18

Based on the book by James Patterson, Middle School: Worst Years of My Life is about a preteen boy named Rafe Katchadorian (Griffin Gluck), who, after being kicked out of two schools in one year, starts at a new school called Hills Village Middle School. The school is run by the super strict Principal Dwight (Andrew Daly), who enforces the kids to wear ridiculous clothes, loves the BLAAR (Baseline Assessment of Academic Readiness) tests, and hates creativity. That's a problem because Rafe loves to draw. After witnessing Principal Dwight drop Rafe's sketch book in a bucket of acid, his best friend Leo (Thomas Barbusca) suggests that he should take revenge and pull epic pranks on the principal.

When I first saw a trailer for this movie two years ago, I was afraid that it would be like 2010's Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I personally hated that movie because I thought it was mean-spirited and disgusting. Also, I found the character Patty Farrell was a one-dimensional Helga Pataki clone.

Now what do I think of this movie? Well, I enjoyed it a little more than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but no where near as much as Captain Underpants. For starters, the acting from the kid actors is pretty impressive. In fact, they acted better than most of the A-list actors in the movie!

The pranks are also awesome and skillfully pulled off. My favorite has defiantly got to be the trophy case replaced with a fish tank.

Unfortunately, the good qualities of this movie are outweighed by the bad. Rafe is as bad of an influence as Bart Simpson with only a handful of redeeming qualities as Bart. Also, I feel that the subplot involving Jules, Rafe's mom, getting remarried could've been removed.

In conclusion, Middle School: Worse Years of My Life is a disappointing film that could've been kid-ified a bit more, but may interest teens.

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5.