Starring: Jack Black, Mike White, Joan Cusack

I tried, mightily, to resist the overpowering force of School of Rock, but was ultimately defeated. I was immediately put on the defensive by the omnipresent shtick of Jack Black, who, with this movie, is deservedly headed to Adam Sandler-popularity land. Black plays Dewey Finn, a shiftless laze-about who is an annoyance to his roommate, substitute teacher Ned Schneebly (Mike White, who also wrote the screenplay) and the members of his band.

They kick him out right before the big "battle of the bands" contest and Dewey finds himself also about to be ousted from his corner of the living room as Ned's new live-in girlfriend (Sarah Silverman, who seems much more talented than the roles she plays) disapproves of him. Dewey is also short on cash, so when he intercepts an emergency call for a fill-in teacher at a local prep school, he passes himself off as Ned and heads to class.

At about this point anyone with a "Jack Black Geiger Counter" will have readings going off the scale. Black is like a scat-man with Tourette's Syndrome, jiving out tenets of music philosophy as dictated by the stoner group of your high school. If you're not high, or not already in the terminal stages of Black-radiation sickness and therefore unconscious, it gets tedious.

But then, thank God, we're introduced to the class Ned is supposed to teach and gradually, the sickness turns into something else. Director Richard Linklater nudges Black, ever so slightly, to take up only three-quarters of the frame; suddenly he's reacting instead of sputtering and he becomes, almost before our eyes, W.C. Fields. The movie, which is also immeasurably aided by the beloved Joan Cusack, becomes a grittier Sister Act, and that formula, dammit, works.

There is initial revulsion to Dewey's approach to the class. He's too hungover to teach them, even if he could, and he keeps sending them out to recess, which throws some of the overachievers in the class into a tizzy. To fill up the time and to teach these kids something about the classic rock that seems to have escaped the curriculum, Dewey actually gets down to some instruction. He also discovers that most of them are musically adept (or can fill out the bill as roadies, managers, or back-up singers) and forms a band, one he wants to front in the "battle of the bands" contest.

The kids, particularly Joey Gaydos, the lead guitar player, Miranda Cosgrove, as the prissy band manager, Maryam Hasan as a girl who doesn't think she can sing back-up and Robert Tsai, are all contributions. Linklater gets extra points for making them seem like real kids and especially for keeping the whole thing from getting maudlin. There's no kid with a secret disease, or a drunk dad who disapproves of his child being in the band. Nope, every parent is shocked and dismayed in this film, which doesn't make them wrong, it just makes them parents.

Dewey teaches the kids to fight "the Man" in School of Rock, as represented by any kind of authority. It's a dubious and probably unnecessary lesson for kids on the verge of teenage rebellion, but it's a surprisingly unexpected comfort to know that Jack Black is the instructor.