Summer School is one of those films that I really enjoyed as a boy growing up in the 80’s. It had crazy characters, pretty girls, funny one-liners and cool people, like Mark Harmon. Watching the film today, I can honestly say that it is as good now as it was then. The only problem is, I have matured as a person and as a movie viewer. The characters are still crazy, but they are also largely annoying. The girls are still pretty, and the foreign exchange student is the same woman who played Allota Fagina in A...stin Powers, but Kirstie Alley is no longer the girl America once thought she was. There are still some great one-liners, but many of the attempts at humor fall painfully flat. And then there’s Mark Harmon. While he was cool at the time, I can now see that he most closely resembles the bastard offspring of Dave Coulier and Kevin Costner.

The film is certainly entertaining enough for a casual viewing. The premise is a simple one. Mark Harmon plays a coach who is tapped to teach remedial English in Summer School. Nobody wants to be there, but the mad cap band of misfits comes together to do what has to be done, while having fun along the way. It is a story that has been told on screen countless times, with similar results. If it weren’t for the excessive gore (provided by two students obsessed with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and one character dropping the “F” bomb, I’d think this was one of the never-ending stream of Disney flicks that follows this formula to mediocre glory.