Recess: School's Out

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Recess: School's Out
File:Recess Schools Out film.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Chuck Sheetz
Produced by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Screenplay by Jonathan Greenberg
Story by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Based on Recess
by Paul Germain & Joe Ansolabehere
Starring <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Music by Denis M. Hannigan
Edited by Tony Mizgalski
Production
company
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Television Animation
Sunwoo Animation
Sunwoo Digital International
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • February 10, 2001 (2001-02-10) (premiere)
  • February 16, 2001 (2001-02-16) (wide)
Running time
 82 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $23 million[1]
Box office $44.4 million[1]

Recess: School's Out is a 2001 American animated comedy film based on the Disney television series Recess.[2] It was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and released theatrically in the United States on February 16, 2001.

Plot

After pulling off one last big prank at Third Street Elementary School, T.J. Detweiler and his friends are excited about being done with the rest of the school year and starting summer vacation. But TJ's happiness is short-lived, as he finds out that all five of his best friends (and most of their schoolmates) are going to be gone for most of the summer at various summer camps around the state to plan for their futures. T.J. quickly becomes bored and lonely without his friends to hang out with, and even very reluctantly agrees to hang out with the school snitch Randall. On his way there, he notices something going on at the school. T.J. sneaks inside and finds scientists using a tractor beam to levitate an office safe. Panicked, he tries to tell his parents and the police, but every time they do not listen. When he gets Principal Prickly to come to see what is going on, the principal is electrocuted and dematerialized while attempting to unlock and open the door. T.J. decides he has to round up the gang and uses his sister Becky's diary to blackmail her into driving him to all the camps to pick up his friends.

T.J. and his friends steal a box of documents, but find them all filled with weather maps. T.J's friends accuse him of making up an idea just to bring them back. T.J. tells them he really did see Prickly disappear, but Gus points out that Prickly had just got into a car and driven off. The five are about to head back to their camps when they see an enormous tractor beam come out of the school and shoot out a green laser, realizing T.J. was right. The next day, T.J. finds Prickly's golf pants in a dumpster and also sees a bald guy he saw guarding the school pull off a mask of Principal Prickly's face, showing that this was indeed him pretending to be Prickly.

The gang finds a note in the pocket of Prickly's golf pants saying "HELP ME!" on it; this makes T.J. and his friends decide to break into the school to save him. Randall eavesdrops on this and informs the assistant teacher, Miss Finster, who then plans to catch the gang trying to break into the school. While there, they are caught spying by the guards (which includes a cadre of ninjas) and are forced to flee, an act witnessed by a shocked Randall and Finster. T.J., on the other hand, is captured and is put in a storage room where he finds the real Prickly, who is all tied up in thick ropes to a chair and his mouth gagged. The bald guy's boss turns out to be a man named Dr. Phillum Benedict, who enters the room to interrogate Prickly and T.J.

After Benedict leaves, Prickly reveals to T.J. that he and Benedict were once best friends and that Miss Finster used to be Benedict's girlfriend. Prickly then explains his story, back in the spring of 1968, Benedict became the principal of Third Street School. During a private conversation with Prickly, Benedict showed him that he had intended a move to abolish recess as a way to "make test grades go up". Prickly went to the superintendent to sort things out, who promptly demoted Benedict and promoted Prickly in his place. Benedict angrily accused Prickly of stealing his job, which along with his hatred of recess, caused Finster to break up with him. An infuriated Benedict promptly ended his friendship with Prickly, quit teaching, and swore revenge. Later on, Prickly says Benedict went into politics and became Secretary of Education, only to be fired by the President when he tried to abolish recess nationwide.

Using the air ducts, T.J. and Prickly head to Prickly's office, where T.J. finds his confiscated walkie-talkie and tells his friends Benedict wants to destroy summer vacation after seeing painted graffiti on his wall. However, T.J. and Prickly are caught by the bald guy again before T.J. could explain further. T.J.'s friends then try to get the police into the case, but just like T.J., they end up being laughed at. Even Finster tried to voice her objections over what's happening in the school, only for the policemen to suggest she call Jackie Chan). T.J.'s friends go through the box of documents again. Spinelli finds a date book that says lunar perigee (which happens to be 12:22 the next afternoon) on it; Gretchen deduces that Benedict is trying to move the moon's orbit via tractor beam when it's closest to the Earth, which as a result, will create a new ice age. Benedict reveals to T.J. and Prickly that his ultimate plan is to put the world in an eternal state of winter so that kids will be forced inside to study year round.

T.J.'s friends get Becky to drive to the camps again, where they pick up all the children. Gus draws up the plans to attack the school. T.J. and Prickly are looked in a cage as T.J. panics. Prickly tells T.J. off by reminding him that he also was a child once and that the memories of his summer vacations are the only thing he has left of his childhood. Prickly and T.J. proceed to escape the cage. Gus' plan works, looking the security outside the school. After reuniting with T.J. and Prickly, who dumped corn chowder all over the bald guy, the kids storm the auditorium, only for another set of guards to restrain them as Benedict prepares to pull the lever. However, Finster arrives to the rescue, bringing the teachers and staff as an army to help stop Benedict for good. A battle ensues between Benedict's men and the students and staff. Prickly punches Benedict in the face to stop him from triggering the beam, but as Benedict slumps, he triggers the beam and Prickly cannot deactivate it. Vince manages to throw a baseball into the machine and destroys the device, much to everyone's delight. Following the aftermath of the battle in the school, T.J. and his friends are declared heroes while Benedict and his men are arrested by the police for theft of government property, breaking and entering, and attempted terrorism.

T.J.'s friends inform him they intend to spend the rest of their summer with him. T.J. then rushes into Prickly's office to thank him, only to be thanked by Prickly himself for reminding him of why he went into teaching in the first place: to help kids. The film ends with T.J. and his friends rushing off to the lake while Prickly looks on, smiling.

Cast

Music

Recess: School's Out (Original Movie Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released January 13, 2001
Genre Soundtrack
Label Walt Disney
Soundtrack
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars
  1. "Dancing in the Street - Martha and the Vandellas - 2:38
  2. "Born to Be Wild" – Steppenwolf - 3:27
  3. "One" – Three Dog Night - 3:01
  4. "Incense and Peppermints" – Strawberry Alarm Clock - 2:46
  5. "Wipe Out" – The Surfaris - 2:37
  6. "Nobody But Me" – The Human Beinz - 2:14
  7. "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" – The 5th Dimension - 2:29
  8. "Green Tambourine" – Robert Goulet - 2:36
  9. "Recess Suite" – Denis M. Hannigan - 5:07
  10. "Dancing in the Street" – Myra - 3:57

Note: "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix was also used in the film, though it is not included on the soundtrack.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 61% of 69 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 5.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Though basically a TV cartoon stretched out to movie-length, Recess has enough successful jokes and smart writing to make it a worthwhile view."[3]

Box office

The film earned $36,706,141 in North America and another $7,754,709 from other territories. The worldwide gross was $44,460,850, against a $23 million budget.[1]

Home media

Recess: School's Out was released on VHS and DVD on August 7, 2001.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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