Higher Learning Critic Reviews

Singleton's film is interesting for a lot of reasons, but especially because he stands outside this campus system and looks at it with a detached eye.Read the full review

Higher Learning is seriously intended and seriously flawed. Singleton tends to shout his objectives. But in an era of cop-out escapism, it is gratifying to find a filmmaker who is spoiling to be heard.Read the full review

When this movie is quiet and introspective, it speaks with a clear voice. That insight gets muddled, however, the more forceful Singleton becomes.Read the full review

Higher Learning culminates in facile violence instead of the assurance that this film maker, in trying to explain forces that oppress his characters, has really done his homework.Read the full review

Despite a weakness for trying to tie things up with melodramatic violence, Singleton remains a fluid filmmaker who works well with actors. He may not be there yet, but he is on the road.Read the full review

For every persuasive insight John Singleton brings to Higher Learning, his thoughtful but flawed movie about multiculturalism and racism, he throws in something equally disappointing.Read the full review

Higher Learning starts out as a liberal message movie, but it turns into a demagogic rabble-rouser, a shrewdly incendiary exploitation of these wayward days of rage.Read the full review

Higher Learning: John Singleton's ambitious potpourri of on-campus tensions - date rape, black power, white supremacy - all too quickly lapses into pandering preachiness. [17 Feb 1995, p.4D]Read the full review

Higher Learning put me in mind of a long lecture by a well-meaning but dull professor. What he has to say may be worthwhile, but it's delivered with plodding predictability. [12 Jan 1995, p.A12]Read the full review