Personally, if my kids went to a school of rock where they learned that Yes were cool, I'd firebomb the school board. But the movie works because Jack Black gives a virtuoso one-man show as a metalhead substitute teacher. There's something weirdly mean-spirited about the movie -- the white kids learn to rock, and the black kids learn to be bodyguards or backup singers. Hell, The Bad News Bears let the whole team get into the game, why can't School of Rock? Yet Black's manic riffing is the comedy…

After getting kicked out of his band, a hell-raising guitarist impersonates a substitute teacher and turns a class of fifth-grade high-achievers into high-voltage rock 'n' rollers.

Story

Poor Dewey Finn (Jack Black): All this guitarist wants to do is rock 'n' roll, but not even his going-nowhere band can put up with his overly dramatic and ridiculously bad solos, and like Spinal Tap personified, anything that can go wrong for Dewey does. His desperation reaches climactic proportions when his…