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Created Aug 07, 2010 05:20PM PST • Edited Jan 07, 2017 02:42PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   More funny than corny, which is saying something because this well done caricature comedy is enthusiastically corny. Back to School was mostly a platform for Rodney Dangerfield to bring his Vegas shtick to a younger generation. It received a jolt of youthful hipness from a young Robert Downey Jr.’s livewire performance as a New Wave roommate.

   While not nearly in Animal House territory as a great collegiate comedy, it still brings the laughs and has the added kick of seeing superstar Downey in his younger guise.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Much scenery gets chewed, especially by Dangerfield, who one-lines his way through the entire picture. The guy is funny, if a bit one note. Plus, his rich-letch-goes-to-college shtick wears thin by the third reel.

   Downey nearly steals the movie, with his now patented brilliant patter and young Tony Curtis look.

   Sally Kellerman grins her way through an utterly charming turn as a dreamy English lit professor.

   Several other character actors and comics deliver effective turns: Sam Kinison, Burt Young, and M. Emmet Walsh among them. Hell, even Kurt Vonnegut himself makes a cameo.

   Keith Gordon acquits himself weakly as Dangerfield’s son. Good thing he later found career success as a director.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Downey

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Big names behind the camera include Harold Ramis and Danny Elfman. National Lampoon and Second City TV alumnus Ramis cowrote this and Animal House. Elfman, who has written the music to scores of films, also plays in the Oingo Boingo Band here.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music Great 4.0

    80s music and hair.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.9

    Gleefully naughty.

17. Sex Titillating 2.3

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.2

    The clip in the nearby WikChip brilliantly shows how successful entrepreneurs cut through theory to get to essential practice, even if the part at the end about bribes and kickbacks takes the idea way too far.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.9

23. Biological Surreal 2.1

24. Physical Surreal 2.5