1 gibble out of 5

Director: Joseph Kahn

Kay.  Most ‘Detention’ reviews cover the two sides of the argument pretty well, that the relentless delivery is either just a distraction from the relentless emptiness of the film or that it’s some slam-bang forcefed genius that moves past its flaws before you can contemplate them too much.  I generally fall into the former camp – see the one gibble – but I do appreciate the planning that the script and editing would take in order to keep a film this on crack for 93 minutes, because Detention ..doesn’t.. let up, and the moments when it does slow down are almost painfully oddly boring, and make you wish for the loud and fast delivery to return just to move things along.

There’s a plot here, about a meta-Screamish killer in a high school, but it doesn’t matter.  Detention hops through a handful of sci-fi and horror movie tropes to wrap around to a reveal that could’ve been cooler if you cared a lick about any of these characters, or even could remember their names or how they’re involved in the story.  But the story doesn’t seem to care, so why should you?  But that’s fine, perhaps the humor is too Scary Movie-ish for my taste (reference something and add a swear word or crass joke and it’s funny), but that’s not what bothered me – what irked me was that the film didn’t work on any level.  The weirdness is too herky-jerk to feel weird, bloated with a loud soundtrack and Edgar Wrightish high-energy editing style (without his understanding of pacing and composition) to make it anything more than just noise, the comedy wants to be part of the banter crowd, but it’s just talking fast with camera stings to punctuate what are supposed to be punchlines, and the odd decision to input some minor attempts at characterization just don’t blend.

Lastly, most offensively – the blood and horror are stupid.  Maybe it’s not Detention’s fault for getting mixed in with the horror crowd, but some good looking promotional art and tours of the horror circuit made me expect something more.