For movies, the more unconventional the babysitter, the more potential fun it can be for the kids and audiences alike.
We've seen that with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop and Eddie Murphy in Daddy Day Care.
Now comes Jack Black presiding over a fifth-grade class in School of Rock.
Yes, that Jack Black of Tenacious D fame, a wildman if ever there was one.
As Black proved in High Fidelity, Orange County, Shallow Hal and Saving Silverman, Black is the John Belushi or Chris Farley of his generation.
Like his predecessors, he has a non-conformist edge, but he also has enough charisma to make him accessible to mainstream audiences.
School of Rock is an experiment to see just how wide that appeal might be.
Suddenly we have a PG-rated Black who's toned down his expletives but not his manic personality.
As fate would have it, Black's unqualified Dewey ends up as a substitute teacher in a Grade 5 class.
Dewey cleans up his looks if not his act and heads out to mould the minds of tomorrow's leaders.
These are not street-wise ghetto kids like Dewey himself, but privileged, wealthy intellectuals who would rather study and learn than slough off.
The only thing Dewey and his charges have in common is their love of music, albeit vastly different kinds of music.
He has to roll their classical sensibilities into the soul of rock.
Black can go to the head of the class. His School of Rock is not just a feel-good family movie, but a feel-great one. It's a comedy that respects its young costars as well as its young audiences. It doesn't speak down to youngsters and it doesn't make fun of them.
At one point a chubby girl with a spectacular voice tells Dewey she can't sing in public because people will laugh at her. He tells her with talent like hers, size doesn't matter and with poignant self-deprecating humour he says they are two peas in a pod and people just love him.
He ends up installing confidence and a spirit of rebellion into all his students. He revs them up a notch or two and comes down a peg or two himself.
School of Rock has such a big heart and well-oiled funnybone that, for a family flick, it really rocks.
(This film is rated PG)
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