Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of being forced to disagree with Ebert and Roeper, who inexplicably gave this 150 minute exercise in gum-beating prattle two thumbs up. I think this film is fatuous, bloated, constipated mawkish nonsense. If I had a dollar for every cheap cliché that fills the silver screen, I'd be a rich man. If I had been hired to play in the film, I wouldn't have been able to throw a rock without hitting someone doing a worn out caricature. If you've already seen Dead Poets Society, you've already seen it. Only this one really sucks.
Kevin Kline plays a professor of the classics (William Hundert) at an upscale prep school for the east coast elite, the rich and powerful moguls of the media, the captains of industry, and the political cognoscenti. So it's a striking irony that, as head of the schoolboys, Kline plays an archetypal schoolboy himself, a man who remains perennially confined in a schoolboy's world-view, in which dutiful, obedient children literally fear to tread off the paved paths set before them, where they memorize their lessons with the reverence of Mullah's memorizing the Koran, and where they all strive for vaulted honor of being `Mr. Caesar,' winner of a quiz-show type contest on Roman history.
What really galls me about this film is its irresponsible worship of classical history, especially the Romans. An unabashed didactic on the importance of morals and virtue, Mr. Principled Professor (Kline) is continually holding them up as exemplars. Which makes me wonder if the authors of this script ever really studied ancient history. Caesar, their archetypal man of virtue, overthrew republican Roman government in a military junta of the same ilk as Crassus, Sulla, and Pompey. Caesar loved power. What a strange lesson in civic humanism.
Kevin Kline plays a professor of the classics (William Hundert) at an upscale prep school for the east coast elite, the rich and powerful moguls of the media, the captains of industry, and the political cognoscenti. So it's a striking irony that, as head of the schoolboys, Kline plays an archetypal schoolboy himself, a man who remains perennially confined in a schoolboy's world-view, in which dutiful, obedient children literally fear to tread off the paved paths set before them, where they memorize their lessons with the reverence of Mullah's memorizing the Koran, and where they all strive for vaulted honor of being `Mr. Caesar,' winner of a quiz-show type contest on Roman history.
What really galls me about this film is its irresponsible worship of classical history, especially the Romans. An unabashed didactic on the importance of morals and virtue, Mr. Principled Professor (Kline) is continually holding them up as exemplars. Which makes me wonder if the authors of this script ever really studied ancient history. Caesar, their archetypal man of virtue, overthrew republican Roman government in a military junta of the same ilk as Crassus, Sulla, and Pompey. Caesar loved power. What a strange lesson in civic humanism.