The sitcom may not have been popular with critics, but it was a fantastic three series on BBC Three, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out there was a movie, I just hoped as the last venture for the characters, it would be a good sendoff. Basically Alfie Wickers (Jack Whitehall) has taken Class K on a trip to Amsterdam, unbeknownst to him, Mitchell Harper (Britain's Got Talent's Charlie Wernham) has spiked his crepe with magic mushrooms, causing him to hallucinate while at the Anne Frank Museum, he sees student Jing Hua (Kae Alexander) as a panda, and steals the Anne Frank dummy thinking it is alive. A year later, the PTA are angered when Alfie plans to take his students to Las Vegas, they doubt the educational value of the trip, they demand Alfie be sacked, but Deputy Head and Alfie's father Martin Wickers (Harry Enfield), headmaster Shaquille Fra$er (Mathew Horne) and teacher and Alfie's girlfriend Miss Rosie Gulliver (Sarah Solemani) insist he is given another chance. The teachers plan a surprise visit to Alfie's class, they walk in as Mitchell attempts to tattoo Alfie with "Class K Forever", he passes out and is left with only the letters "CLA", the classroom visit ends with parents refusing to pay for the Las Vegas trip, Alfie decides to take his students to Cornwall himself instead. Student Joe Poulter (Ethan Lawrence) is concerned his overbearing mother Susan (Joanna Scanlan) won't let him go, but Alfie fools the parents into thinking the trip is academical, he tells his class that his best friend from school, Atticus Hoye (Jeremy Irvine), is hosting a house party in Cornwall. Susan being stern and suspicious of Alfie comes with the group, forcing the students to go to environmental attraction the Eden Project, while there Mitchell picks a "natural laxative" plant, Alfie uses it to spike Susan's drink. The class continue to Penleven Castle where they see John the Baptist's foreskin, Susan begins to feel the effects of the laxative, leaving the class unattended to go to the toilet, while away Mitchell steals the foreskin, Alfie retrieves it when it is almost lost, unable to return the foreskin to its case he is forced to eat it to cover his tracks, Joe replaces it with a pork scratching. The group arrives at the fishing town of Port Jago, Alfie and the children sneak out from their hotel to the local pub, there the barman Don (Steve Speirs) and Pasco Trevelyan (Iain Glen) are discussing the Cornish Liberation Army, a terrorist organisation fighting for Cornish independence, they are both members. When Alfie and the class arrive, Alfie is mistaken as a member when Pasco sees the unfinished "CLA" tattoo, Pasco has a plan to assassinate local MP Michael Hoye (Colin Matthews), a friend of Atticus' father, Pasco overhears Alfie talking about the Hoye house party, Alfie and the class get involved in the pub frivolities, it gets out of hand when Joe is stabbed in the hand. Susan catches them and records the incident, but before she can report it, Pasco slips her sleeping pills, packs her in a trunk, and ships her to Cherbourg, France. Pasco take the class to a strip club, where he asks Alfie to deliver some cannabis to the house party, the truck he is supposed to deliver is actually full of explosives, meanwhile Susan hitches a lift back to the UK, with some illegal immigrants. Back at the school, the teachers have lost contact with the Cornwall trip since Susan went missing, so Martin, Fra$er, and Rosie travel to Cornwall to find them. Alfie and the children arrive at the party, Alfie is bullied by his so-called friends and made to teabag a swan, feeling betrayed by everyone, he calls Pasco to pick him up, but this call is a signal to detonate the truck, the Hoye house is blown up. Pasco drives Pasco and the students to Port Jago, Pasco decides to make Alfie the leader of the Cornish rebellion, many people from the pub and Port Jago show up, revealing themselves as members of the CLA. Meanwhile the other teachers searching for Alfie and the class have called the police to help, they call in Interpol thinking it as being a serious situation, they conclude Alfie has been radicalised, Susan and the other parents join the operation. The dozens of CLA members crowd at Penleven Castle, Alfie sabotages the rebellion, but expresses sympathy for Pasco's cause, Pasco turns violent and traps the class, the children find a secret passage leading to the beach to escape, but Alfie has a sword fight with Pasco. In the end, Rosie and Fra$er arrive in a helicopter and rescue Alfie, Pasco is arrested, it forwards to results day, Mitchell puts magic mushrooms into chocolate brownies, Alfie is again inebriated and hallucinates, resulting in a very unusual 'Leavers Photograph'. Also starring Nikki Runeckles as Chantelle Parsons, Weruche Opia as Cleopatra Ofoedo, Layton Williams as Stephen Carmichael, Jack Binstead as Leslie "Rem Dogg" Remmington, Talulah Riley as Phoebe, Clarke Peters as Commander Andrews, Marc Wootton as Officer Geoffrey, Steve Oram as Officer Rowe and Greg James. Whitehall is energetic as the childish, haphazard teacher, and he does a reasonable job of writing the script, as with many feature film adaptations of TV shows it tries to be bigger, getting out and about and being more over the top, most of the jokes are lewd pratfalls and gross bits, they don't all hit the mark, but fans of the series will have fun, a reasonable comedy. Worth watching!

Overall: It is a consistently entertaining movie and serves its purpose well. Both Bad Education veterans and newcomers will enjoy it enough.

Good: It is consistently funny with most of them quirky, fun, unique characters from the show. The headmaster, Rosie, his dad, Stephen and of course Joe are some of the fraction that appear in the movie and you don't have to have watched the show to understand it or know the characters. The cinematography is pretty good and the story is actually more filled up than expected. The music is great and emits a much more Party feel so you know you are in for a good time. All the cast from the show reprise their roles and do it beautifully with, I believe, a new edition in Joe's mum who was the standout performer. She gave an edgy, no nonsense feel around her.

Bad: The TV show is 150% funnier and I think the more over- dramatised story of a Cornish Extremist group (Best Line in any movie ever) made the story less humorous than possible in effort to propel the story. The original show had a lot of characters but dealt with them greatly and made each character shine. In this however, the primary and individual traits for each character rarely appear and they have little development in order to strive fourth with new additions.

Best Part: 'You can take our freedom but you'll never take OUR PASTIES!!!!!!'

MVP: Joanna Scanlan as Susan Poulter

7/10

This movie is funny, though I recommend watching the series first, which may even be necessary to actually enjoy the movie.

The movie in short: The class goes on a trip but of course, nothing goes as expected.

Since the series has many more or less deep characters, the movie cannot compete in terms of character development. While the series contains on average 6 episodes per season at roughly half an hour (way too short for its quality in my opinion), the movie has to cope with introducing the various students and teachers within the first part of the movie. I am not sure if that is enough to really "understand" the situation/background story at "Abbey Grove". The characters may seem a little flat/stereotypical if one has not yet seen the series. Granted, "form K" pretty much has a member of every socio-demographic (?) group in it that I could think of of the top of my head. This makes the series more interesting, may seem a little forced to be funny in the movie.

Regarding the humor in the movie, it is exactly what you would expect after watching the series. It is about the same level of sometimes beneath the belt but makes you laugh more often than cringe.

Personally I am pretty happy with the movies ending. As most people may have experienced, it is an awful feeling when a series that one has really enjoyed watching comes to a close and leaves a feeling of emptiness. "The bad education movie" fills the void that the series left perfectly and at least for me, gives the whole story a finish that I can live and close that chapter with.

I did enjoy the series more than the movie, though it is still a movie I'd recommend.