Underclassman Critic Reviews

If you saw "21 Jump Street" back in the '80s, or any of a number of shows featuring cute and cuddly cops, you pretty much know where this flick is heading.Read the full review

Marcos Siega's direction is well-paced, but writers David T. Wagner and Brent Goldberg haven't brought anything sufficiently fresh or original to a formula plot to allow Underclassman to rise above the level of a mildly diverting video rental.Read the full review

So far-fetched as to make "Kindergarten Cop" look comparatively austere.Read the full review

Nick Cannon, playing an L.A. cop who goes undercover as a prep school student, provides the few sparks this wan action-comedy can muster.Read the full review

That sound you hear is from jet engines gassing up, about to zoom Underclassman to DVD-ville.Read the full review

Underclassman doesn't even try to be good. It knows that it doesn't have to be. It stars Nick Cannon, who has a popular MTV show, and it's a combo cop movie, romance, thriller and high school comedy. That makes the TV ads a slam dunk; they'll generate a Pavlovian response in viewers conditioned to react to their sales triggers (smartass young cop, basketball, sexy babes, fast cars, mockery of adults).Read the full review

Less an original product than a shoddy tribute to other mediocre cop movies.Read the full review

The loserville teen comedy Underclassman is like a student project sloppily cribbed from other kids' notes -- kids who have seen "Rush Hour" and still can't get over how funny it is to stick a noisy black guy in a distinctly nonblack setting.Read the full review

The latest bit of damaged goods offered up in the Miramax clearance sale, Underclassman plays like the longest episode of "21 Jump Street" ever made.Read the full review