'Detention' features grizzly bear time machine, voyage to 1992

I watched a weird, silly movie the other day that some of you might enjoy watching, the horror-comedy “Detention.”

Released in theatres in April, this movie (Rated R) was directed by Joseph Kahn and stars Dane Cook, Josh Hutcherson, Spencer Locke, Shanley Caswell and Parker Bagley. In a nutshell, this movie is about a group of Grizzly Lake High School students who’ve been given detention. Two things are going on while they’ve got detention. The school is holding its annual prom dance, and there’s a killer loose on campus trying to take everyone out. The detention kids have to band together in order to survive and take down the killer.

To say that there was a lot going on in this movie would be an understatement. There were a lot of special effects and the plot also involved heavy doses of “body-personality switching,” time travel and pop culture references. It seemed like a mash-up of the “Scream” movies, “Back to the Future,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Like Father Like Son.” If you liked those movies, you’ll probably get a kick out of “Detention.”

One element of this movie that I thoroughly enjoyed centered on the school’s principal, Principal Verge, who’s played by Dane Cook. Verge was a student at the school in 1992, and at that time he was a nerdy outcast who continually struck out when it came to the ladies. The kids from the present day actually travel back in time to prevent Verge from constructing a bomb. When the kids go back to the early 90s, the movie presents us with a delicious, nostalgic look at that time period, complete with the music, clothes, slang and gestures from that time period. It was awesomely done.

This movie also gave us an interesting twist on time machines. The centerpiece of Grizzly Lake High School is a huge, stuffed grizzly bear that’s standing on its hind legs inside the main entrance of the school. It becomes more than just the school’s mascot though when one of the more ingenious present-day students constructs a time machine inside the bear’s torso. Time travelers just climb inside the bear’s belly, manipulate the virtual controls and then pop out of the bear at the school’s main entrance at an earlier time.

In the end, I’d give this movie a B. It didn’t blow my socks off, and I found myself pleased that it was only a little over an hour and a half long. The death scenes were over-the-top, sometimes unbelievable and obviously faked. With that said, this movie was not without it’s merits, so if you like horror-comedies, check this one out. More than likely, it’ll be different that anything you’ve seen in the genre to date.

How many of you have seen “Detention”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Why? Would you recommend it to others? What other movies did it remind you of? Let us know in the comments section below.