In this feeble-minded comedy, America's favorite janitor, Ernest P. Worrell, again plumbs the depths of recycled slapstick. This direct-to-video series installment is characterized by impoverished writing, slipshod direction, and an imbecile protagonist whose novelty value is worn out to
the point of frazzling.
Inept handyman Ernest (Jim Varney) is a fixture at Chippewa Falls High School. Setting out to repair a leaky faucet, Ernest turns a men's room into a flood disaster area. Enter bureaucrat Mr. Axwell (Kevin McNulty), who proclaims that all school employees must have a high school diploma. After
predictably disastrous encounters with classroom learning, Ernest is saved from a pink slip by two excitable German scientists on the faculty, Gerta (Linda Kash) and Bobby (Bill Byrge). Ernest is to be the guinea pig in their sub-atomic brain stimulation experiment and must regularly receive an
infusion of the smarts. Braced with instant intelligence, the new, improved Ernest shines in class and peps up school spirit in the music class taught by his unrequited sweetheart Miss Flugal (Corrine Koslo). Unfortunately, a side effect of the brain treatment turns affable Ernest into an arrogant
show-off, which alienates his former teenage pals. Ernest looks forward to a triumphant turn as band leader at the big game (which the school needs to win in order to forestall the closing sought by greedy Axwell), but he's sabotaged by two home-team bullies. After discovering that their own Coach
Decker (Duncan Fraser) has been bribed into throwing the game, the high schoolers strike back with sleeping gas from the chem lab. Chastened by his experiences as a cold-hearted intellectual, Ernest helps save the day without resorting to outside scientific assistance. Axwell and Coach Decker are
given their walking papers, and the school gets back on track. Attaining his diploma, Ernest regains job security and also catches the eye of Miss Flugal.
ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL chiefly demonstrates that its creators need a crash course in shooting comedy sequences: the camera never seems to be in the right place for laughs. Seeing this stagnant farce is like being trapped in a Three Stooges short starring only one stooge--except that Jim Varney
isn't even as funny as Curly Joe De Rita. Given the popularity of the ERNEST films, it's astonishing that Varney displays so little flair for physical comedy; when in doubt he contorts his rubbery visage. (Ironically, Varney is funnier in his turn as Ernest's brainy alter ego than as his trademark
clod.) This ugly-looking kiddie movie adds insult to injury by ending with one of those sappy, redemptive moral lessons: the hero who gets too big for his overalls has to learn who his true friends are. Meanwhile, kids are given the dubious message that it's actually better to be dumb so long as
you're nice. Thus ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL emerges as the poor man's FORREST GUMP. Stupid is as stupid does business. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment
