SnoopyStyle Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) is a high school senior in Grandsboro, California living with her divorced mother Faye (Lesley Ann Warren). She's trying to be valedictorian needing help to go to college. Her best friend Jo Lynn (Marisa Coughlan) likes Luke (Barry Watson) but he actually likes Leigh Ann. Her grades are threatened by her cruel strict teacher Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren). After a bad grade from Tingle on a presentation of the Salem witch trial, Leigh Ann is dropped down to second overall by a point. Luke steals the final exam and puts it in Leigh Ann's bag. Tingle finds it and aims to get her expelled. The kids try to talk Tingle out of it but end up taking her prisoner.Helen Mirren is terrific but the kids are not up to her level. Katie Holmes is too much of a goody two shoes and Luke is too much the other way. Both are annoying. It could be argued that the rooting interest is better with Helen Mirren. It would have been an interesting movie if Kevin Williamson had written it that way. However, he's trying very hard to make her seem cruel but she's not actually wrong. She found the stolen exam in Leigh Ann's bag. Any teacher would have expelled her and possibly the other two also.

bkoganbing Certainly one of the most respected players in English speaking world is Helen Mirren. Previous to the Best Actress Oscar she got for last year playing Queen Elizabeth II she was probably best known for being Scotland Yard police inspector Jane Tennyson in Prime Suspect when those episodes reached the American side of the pond. But somewhere somehow, someone persuaded this woman to sign up for a role in American teen comedy Teaching Mrs. Tingle in the title role.Meryl Streep might have seen Helen Mirren in this part before she signed up for The Devil Wears Prada. Mirren is certainly the teacher from hell. I met a few like them, time serving drudges who were hardly inspirational figures for impressionable kids.Katie Holmes is one of those impressionable kids who's a grade grubber to put it mildly. We're to believe here that Mirren's less than A grade will ruin her entire future because she won't get a scholarship that will go to Liz Stauber her rival who's rich and doesn't need it anyway.A visit by Holmes and her two friends Barry Watson and Marisa Coughlan results in Mirren being kidnapped and tied to her bed. And then she plays the kids all off against each other.Yes, believe it or not this is a comedy. Jeffrey Tambor plays the physical education teacher with whom she's got a thing going and calls Spanky. Michael McKean and Vivica Fox and Molly Ringwald play the principal, guidance counselor, and school secretary all of whom have as low an opinion of Mirren as the kids do, but are afraid of her.I know this made a lot of money because of Watson and Holmes being on current television series 7th Heaven and Dawson's Creek at the time. Still you got to wonder whether they look back in horror at this one. Especially Holmes before she was half of TomKat.

lost-in-limbo History teacher Mrs Tingle seems to have it in for student Leigh Ann Watson, who has her heart on achieving a writing school scholarship. She receives another low grade from Tingle, which doesn't help. When one of her classmates Luke steals the paper of the final history exams and pops it in her bag, Mrs. Tingle finds it sticking out. She threatens the three that she will go to the principal about it, but he's not available. So before she reports it the next morning. Leigh, her friend Jo Lynn and Scott head to her place that night and try to convince her not tell the principal. However due to Tingle's stubbornness, that find themselves reverting to drastic measures to stop this getting out.Wasn't fan of it when I first saw it, and after another viewing, I'm still not one. Writer Kevin Williamson was on a roll after penning the successful contemporary teen horror films; 'Scream (1996)', 'I Know What You did Last Summer (1997)', 'Scream 2 (1997)' and 'The Faculty (1998)'. He was riding the success (also not to forget the TV show 'Dawson's Creek), but this project would be the final bump. The difference there, compared with this entry was other then writing the screenplay, he was also making his debut in directing. The strange thing though, was that I found his direction to be competently done, but material he stormed up to flavourless and tired. It seemed to get caught in playing both a black comedy and straight-out thriller, without making it gel. The script is cluttered with quick-wit, on-going gags, trivial stretches and gimmicky references towards other films, but the problem is that it's too watered-down with so many contrived developments and sappy moral currents disrupting the flow. The fractured script had to be more strong and potent, since it's a small-scale production that feels like you're watching a stage show because of its mostly confined sets. It tries to play mind games with the characters, but these moments are there to only serve the story's poor progression into a puddle of stupidity and senselessness. The film's ending takes the cake. Williamson's polished direction is sound, but more so in a pedestrian way and therefore it lacks suspense and the pacing even with its taut surroundings can really plod on. You eventually feel it after the halfway mark, and it shows up how minor the story is. The performances are tolerable enough, although if it weren't for Helen Mirren's classy, icy portrayal of manipulative prowess as Mrs. Tingle and a buoyant Marisa Coughlan, we would have been stuck watching a vapid goody-to-shoes Katie Holmes. Barry Watson is modest in his slacker part and Molly Ringwald has a lesser role. The soundtrack packs enough energy, but I found it terribly overwrought and shapeless in its choices.Watchable, but mechanical all round.

blackphone123 I don't know how this movie got such bad ratings, because this movie is one of the funniest teen movies ever and its script is nicely written. I mean, sure, this movie isn't a masterpiece. however, you will get a good laugh by the subtle and witty remarks the characters say, and how the situations change throughout the film. there are also come clever twists and surprises that'll make you go "oh s***!!" this movie is a classic horror comedy and it is really worth seeing it. rent it and see it with your friends. you guys will love it! oh and there is this one particular scene that you can't miss out on...im going to call it the "exorcist scene"...you'll know what im talking about if you see the film. it is HILARIOUS.