Too much of everything

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Before I begin there are drastic changes from the the book and the movie adaptation, which may or may not be a bad thing.Movie Review: This movie is a coming of age story of Russell Middlebrook in a very small hometown. Like many other gay coming of age It deals with Russell trying to come to terms with his homosexuality. The main cast are relate able and the acting for most of the cast is very well done and excellent chemistry with one another. Since it is an adaptation from 1st person point of view the actors had the difficult task of portraying emotions through facial expressions, which in most scenes worked. One of the big issues that I do agree with some of the other reviewers is that character development wasn't the best and it focused more on the story. The story in my opinion was really well organized and they edited scene per scene to make it flow very well. Even though gay coming of age stories have been done before it's an enjoyable watch and very fast paced with a satisfying and more realistic ending. As a movie not comparing to the book and on it's own I give it an 8 out of 10.Movie VS Book Review (SPOILERS): The movie and book is drastically different and some of the choices the director made in my opinion made the it more interesting but also a few things I didn't understand why they changed. For instance Min in the novel is Russell's other best friend which I didn't get why they changed that. The movie was fast paced which I didn't mind but that did cut out in character development and some plot. Another change they made was that Russell was originally infatuated with Kevin from the start, they didn't have to make it pathetic but they could have at least made it apparent. They also over developed the bullies which could have been spent on the main characters. I did however like how they mad Ike more than a guy who liked Kevin, which was more annoying than anything else in the book. One of the main arguments that I had about the movie was that Kevin was less in the movie than he was in the book. In the book he also joined the Geography Club and spent a lot of time becoming friends with the others and teaching Russell how to play sports. Otherwise the movie I think did well. with those exceptions and they did well with some of the additions they made to fit the story.

There's not much wrong with Geography Club other than it's not that interesting for adults. As a teen movie it's better than most and that makes it worth a 7 rating.Geography club looks and develops like a made-for-TV movie with aspects of after school specials. The acting is adequate, a couple of the younger actors show promise of being good.The plot for the most part feels realistic in that it meanders, is somewhat unfocused, and nothing comes to a definite conclusion. The characters are mostly one dimensional with the exception of a kid who's bullied at school and apparently abused at home...His character has more going on than is ever addressed.There are glaringly unrealistic elements which makes Geography Club seem more like a typical high school movie such as the main character gets on the football team with no prior experience or interest in the game.Geography Cub is ideal for young teens. There's no soft porn sex or gratuitous nudity nor is there any hit-you-over-the-head tragedy. The film is occasionally genuinely funny and there's enough diversity in the characters that most young viewers could either identify with them or find them familiar. (Although as is typical of almost every queer film made the lead and his boyfriend are good looking white guys with great bodies.)

The movie, given its budget, is essentially technically sound as far as some aspects. The lack of money is clearly visible in some areas, such as the sign-age for the high school. In others, such as the football game, sufficient extras and the location match that of a higher budgeted project (e.g. Friday Night Lights, etc.) Some of the technical aspects were actually conveyed well, such as the cinematography: one good example is the rain scene kiss, some of the bike riding shots, etc. The acting is generally good, but with no real standouts.However, where the story fails is with the character development, plotting, script. A good number of the reviewers here have complained with changes from the book to film; some of these have blamed the poor characterizations on this factor as well. However, a book is not a movie and, as someone who read the book some years ago, this is NOT the problem here.Some of the changes are not apparently necessary, nor improvements (for example, there's no real good reason to make the Ike character into one form of stereotype in exchange for how he was portrayed in the book). Other changes (such as Russell not being sure he wants to identify as gay at the start of the movie, unlike book Russell), or the changes to other characters are really less issues, and in some ways, integral to the themes the movie wants to explore: coming out as a teenager is hard, teens have to deal with peer pressure on multiple levels, parental pressure, homophobia and bullying.In respect to these themes, the movie fails and comes across as very dated, particularly when you consider movies far older than the book source (Edge of Seventeen or Get Real), covered these topics with much better scripts and character development. The YA adult section of any library also has a surfeit of books (any by David Levithan) with more interesting characters and plots than the source book here.Where the characters (and thus the story) are harmed here is with their shallowness - such as Trish and Kimberly (Kimberly is a one dimensional aspiring drunk unable to go for the guy she wants so doing an end-run with his less desirable friend for some unexplained, unknown reason in spite of the portrayal as aggressive and domineering otherwise). In particular, it is implausible that four sets of parents would allow age 16 teens to go away for an entire weekend unsupervised. Yes, a set of parents could go out of town and their child could have a party with alcohol for one evening, for which other kids could sneak away, but we are unnecessarily told (for what happens) that is a two day event.It's even more implausible that authority figures would not have done something to the boys who clearly pushed out the Brian character from the cafeteria closet, particularly given that adults are shown with the same clear site lines that the Nim character enjoyed as Russell slipped guiltily out. Most preposterously, the posting of the flyer with a fairly innocuous and truly ambiguous snap shot of a boy pushing a girl away is in no way an outing, and not particularly an embarrassing, shaming outing (in comparison to a bar, underwear and lipstick humiliation, say). Even the most homophobic student body would not so immediately discarded someone who just won a football game for them with such ease without further proof (and, unless the movie does not tell us this fact, but is chronological takes place in say 2001, the digital image from what looks like a current era cell phone would have been uploaded to social media, not pasted onto paper flyers).The movie fails because it's shallow, simplistic and BAD; the problem is not deviation from the book, it's simply a poorly written/plotted movie with undeveloped characters. Yes, teenagers might benefit from stories about bullying, peer pressure and homophobia - but there are far more superior existing movies for that.

So I finally watched Geography Club. The movie is basically a coming of age story dealing with sexuality, bullying, intolerance, abuse and acceptance but dealt with in a very lighthearted way. I have to admit i got a little emotional when it was over because i thought about the struggle with myself and not fully being able to be myself. Than finally having the courage to finally be myself and feeling a lot happier. I am so happy that there is a movie out here like this and i highly recommend it. I think this a very important movie for this generation and i think everyone needs to see this kids and adults alike.