Let's look at the trailer first... So, it looks like Cameron Diaz is a appalling, couldn't-give-a-fuck teacher, whose only reason for being in teaching is to keep herself in money until she can snare a rich husband. The new teacher in school (Justin Timberlake) has family money, and she sets her sights on him, deciding she needs a boob job in order to get his interest. And thus sets about getting the requisite money in the most thoroughly morally reprehensible ways she can. Meanwhile a thoroughly good, through and through teacher decides to expose her as the menace to children everywhere that she is.
Aaaaand yeah, that's the joke, that's the film. I'm not saying that there's no other laughs at all in the film, but they're all variations on that; Cameron Diaz acting like the worst human on earth, and mostly getting away with it. If they'd taken the time to do a 15 second cut of the end of the film, stuck it on the end of the trailer, that'd be the film precised in as much detail as you'd need.
So, it's pretty shallow. So really if it's going to save itself, this film needs to tell that joke in a lot of funny variations. And to an extent, it does. Bad Teacher does bad things, then worse things, then even worse things, and Good Teacher basically drives herself mad attempting to expose same. And there's actually a pretty decent frisson of dark amusement as you realise that the film isn't even slightly interested in letting the good guy win. And that is the only thing that elevates this above being a pretty dumb average Hollywood comedy.
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