The School for Good and Evil: A New Kind of Fairytale

Warning: Some spoilers ahead

A Summary

The School for Good and Evil takes those old fairytales we all grew up on and extends them out to fit in a different way. Sophie and Agatha are our main characters here, coming from a small village that looks straight out of the 1600s-1700s and their style match with it in the beginning. Sophie has this dream of being a princess and getting away from standard life. Sophie is best friends with Agatha, a girl very unlike her. Agatha is known as the daughter of a village witch, causing everyone to see her as a witch as well. The pair get torn away from their lives and sent to the titular school but not to where you may expect them to go. Sophie is sent to the school of evil while Agatha is sent to the school of good. There is more to the story, but you should watch to find it all out.

What They Did Right

This movie did some things that revolutionize some future adaptations of movies like this. There was this narrator throughout that we later learn is this book called the Storian, a magical object writing the fairytales we all know and some love. The plot does a great job at showing just why the girls are placed in the schools they were, showing it is not a mistake as to why they are there. There is also a great showing of this fight scene near the end which is this all-out battle between the schools. The fight is fit with great music accompanying it alongside some great battle moments.

Something else the movie did right was the music throughout. There were some great choices in music that fit each scene well. The music is a great redeeming quality for the bad that this movie adaptation did.

What They Did Wrong

Netflix is known for making some questionable decisions when it comes to movies and this one is a great example of it.

The CGI found is atrocious at times, such as the Lycans being terribly animated. With current-day CGI found in other movies, it would have been better to work a bit more on it.

The acting is overall good, however, there are times when it feels like parts were cut out and it caused emotions to just suddenly appear instead of a gradual shift to crying about something.

There is this shift in Sophie at the end where she becomes “good” again (this is a book series as well and future books show that she is not all good again.) The shift is so sudden and could have been done better, but that is not at the fault of the actors and more at the fault of the director(s) and screenwriter(s).

The End

This movie ended off in a nice way, much in line with the book. There was a nice foreshadowing to a future movie in the series, but Netflix is known for cancelling things randomly so it may never come.

Overall, this movie would get about a 6 out of 10 as things could have been done better. Still give it a watch to see it for yourself as there were some really great things that redeemed it, but don’t expect the best of the best.