Honor Society (2022) User Reviews

A new spin on an old story, with a fun twist.

[JabezGill · 7/10 · 3 August 2022]

Ignore the negative reviews and give this movie a chance.

Yes, you've seen the "popular kid befriends nerd to manipulate them for the benefit of the popular kid only to experience a change of heart" movie before.

But you've never seen it done like this.

Angourie Rice - a criminally underutilized and under-appreciated actress - gets to shine in this role. The breaking of the 4th wall to talk directly to the audience throughout the film and keep the viewer on the "inside" of Honor's less than honorable plan is a fun twist and great storytelling mechanism.

The big twist at the end was also unexpected - I mean, you know SOMETHING was coming but I don't think many saw that coming.

Is this an award winning, groundbreaking film?

No - but it takes a tried and true formula of coming of age/romcom movies we have seen for decades - and comes at it from a different angle, with a slightly different outcome than we've seen before. Most people will laugh/smile/tear up throughout.

The result is an enjoyable 97 minutes.

Angourie Rice is perfect in the lead role

[jonwoodh · 8/10 · 31 July 2022]

Not another teen movie with young adults playing high school students? Yes, but this one's a winner. It's clever, witty, engaging, has heart and is knocked out of the park by a star winning performance by Angourie Rice. I enjoyed how the tone shifted from Machiavellian to honesty and truth, though the counselor/student sub plot is a little creepy. Should appeal to all ages and I'm an old dude.

With a different ending, this could have been a much more enjoyable film.

[Perspicuity1 · 7/10 · 29 August 2022]

For the most part, Honor Society is an extremely enjoyable film; it's only in the climax where it falls apart. It seems the director has some kind of bitterness towards men, because of the way every single one of them, especially the male lead, has been portrayed. Honor wasn't exactly trying to be angel to her classmates, she was trying to create a distraction that would affect their studies, so much so that they fall behind in the race to be the best in the class. What happened to them as a result of that was great, and it showed how thoughtful a girl Honor was; but that wasn't her only intention, was it? Wasn't she also trying to sabotage the academic plans of her classmates? Just like our male protagonist, Michael, Honor too had a selfish interest behind making friends with Travis, Kennedy and Gary. So how is it that when Honor does it, she is a hero and we are supposed to rally behind her, but Michael is declared villain, a 'bad person' for doing the same?

I realized there will be a twist in the end; either the three students she marked were never really in the top four of Mr. Calvin, or Michael was also playing a mind game with her. But I was hoping to see a happy ending even after the revelation of their true intentions, because what Michael and Honor had between them was really sweet. Why was it necessary to turn Michael into such a cold hearted person? They were school students, it's understandable if they get angry or feel hurt, but why bring in bitterness and hatred?

The movie is exactly what the trailer promised, a ninety minute fun ride that is extremely engaging and entertaining. With things happening at a brisk pace and Honor constantly breaking the fourth wall, you don't feel like looking away from the screen at any point of time. The writing is sharp, witty and filled with a few surprises. The editor has ensured that you don't find a single dull moment in the screenplay. Considering how wonderful the experience of watching this film was, I find it difficult to understand as to why we don't see more such films get made. I kept thinking of the Emma Stone starrer 'Easy A' while watching Honor Society, that's how long it has been since a movie like this got made.

Talking about the performances, Angourie Rice and Gaten Matarazzo have complete nailed it to perfection. As it is both Angourie and Gaten have extremely likeable personalities, but with this film they have proven that they are much more than that. Gaten Matarazzo's role is very different from Stranger Things here, and he proves that he can portray a grounded and understated character with complete ease if the need arises. Angourie's portrayal of a charming and vivacious Honor doesn't even feel like an act, that's how natural her performance is. Both these young actors are doing such a fabulous job at such an early stage of their career, I just hope they stay focused because they have a really bright future ahead of them if they manage to keep their head on their shoulders.

Honor Society could have been a much better film if only the ending was different. Painting Michael as a bad guy who never cared for Honor, ruined my experience. Even after the twist, they could have given us a happy ending by showing that Michael had a change of heart, just like Honor. Why was it so difficult to show that both Honor and Michael became a better person by the end of the film? The unnecessary feminist angle led to the downfall of what could easily have been a beautiful film.

Good movie, but I would never rewatch it

[Eggoreluckadman · 7/10 · 29 July 2022]

The tone is inconsistent but the performances from Angourie Rice and Gaten Matarazzo and style from director Oran Zegman make this an enjoyable, but singular watch.

I miss this type of movies

[Mo-Saad-10 · 7/10 · 1 August 2022]

The Movie was fun , light , entertainment I would recommend it to anyone who wants to watch a fun movie . Just turn it on and have fun . Congratulations to the everyone behind this movie and thank you for making a fun easy too watch . And again it's FUN really FUN.

Surprisingly Good!

[rishabhtiwari888 · 23 March 2023]

There is something special about this movie, although it doesn't have great comedy, romance, thrill and star-cast/budget to get a 7 from me but the story telling is so delightful that I couldnt resist. The character development and twist in the movie is delightful and surprising at the same time. I watched this movie because I really like Angourie from The Nice Guys. As mentioned in the other reviews she is really underrated compared to other Young/ teenage celebrities like Millie Bobby, Jenna Ortega etc.

Back to the film, it is very delightful tale of a young ambitious girl who is ambitious and driven yet has a heart of gold which you'll like if you are into that sort of emotional tale.

Woke Ending ruins otherwise good rom-com/coming of age story

[rogerflores-41611 · 6/10 · 31 July 2022]

The first 2 acts of this movie are a 10, featuring a great romantic rapport between the two leads as well as a nice coming of age story. In the final act, just as the audience is rooting for this couple to overcome the deception they played on each other, the movie takes a hard left turn into some woke pride fest. The story subsequently abandons the romantic element, essentially dismissing Gaten Matarazzo's character arc, leaving the audience who was rooting for this couple hanging out to dry. The ending is such an unwanted turn that I dropped this all the way to a 6. I could've given it a 5, just because of how disappointing this plot twist was.

its a verbal...

[ops-52535 · 6/10 · 29 July 2022]

Tsunami of high school chatter, a film narrated in 1st person period, the anchor role tells and plays the role of honor supposedly the brightest girl at school. Being set up by her principal telling her that she is one outta 4 brightest at the school makes her panic and press every button there are to make the others fail at the midterms. The prizecarrot on the string is a schollarship at harvard.

Well its a comedy of 2022, verbal, digital and social media driven, the story seems to never eject , even though the sexual hints flourish like a swollen orchiid. The main actress does a decent job, as well as the main cast, but the moment of no return or jump of at the turn aint there.i really miss the slapstick and medeval pranks that made a comedy a good comedy in the past. The story spins endlessly into nothing

so a few giggles, and a couple of smiles with a small recommend comes from the grumpy old man.

It was a pretty good movie

[bmasdhs · 9/10 · 29 July 2022]

The story was decent. The ending was kinda surprising. There are some pretty funny jokes. Great casting. A good feature film debut for Gaten Matarazzo.

Good, not GREAT

[steampunksorceress · 7/10 · 16 August 2022]

*SPOILER ALERT* This was a GOOD, NOT GREAT movie. I am a HUGE Gaten Matarazzo fan. So I was EXTREMELY disappointed that the writers of this movie did him so dirty. Ending the movie on on a high note for EVRYONE EXCEPT him pissed me off to no end. Loved it up until that point. There's no reason why him and Honor couldn't have had a happy ending with him being who he was through 3/4ths of the movie and continuing that to the end and everyone else having a happy ending too (Kennedy & the LaCrosse jock, I forget his character name, sorry). Other than that, really fun movie to watch, just wish the character Gaten played the first 3/4ths of the movie could have remained the same through the end of the film with a happy ending for everyone. GATEN DESERVED BETTER!

This one looses so many points in the last 20 minutes

[fg400a · 3/10 · 24 October 2022]

The movie starts with the following line (or similar): "I'm a feminist and women are oppressed by men". Well, that pretty much sums the tone for the rest of the movie. The following items too:

• Men are all evil except gays, gays are super nice always.

• Being an oppressed woman gives you the right to be a manipulative and disgusting young lady (that's how she excuses herself for being such by the end of the movie).

• Forced LGBTQ+ segment by the end of he movie will make you cringe.

On the bright side the cast is pretty solid in its majority and this could have been a 6/10 if not for the last 20 minutes.

Mean Girls with heart

[Hammer-Rocks · 8/10 · 1 August 2022]

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It's a teenage/high school movie with the typical student types associated with high school. You have the popular girls/boys, jocks, nerds/geeks. Bullies, & uber smart students. But what's surprising is they (student types) do not play your stereotype roles normally associated with the tag. Not sure if this is more representative of todays high schoolers, or simply the writers' wishes of what high school should be.

Angourie Rice did a superb job as the lead protagonist, Honor. An extremely talented young actor. Something I've noticed since seeing her on the three Spider-Man reboot. I bet we'll be seeing more of her in movies in the future.

This movie has the flavour of blending together, "Clueless" & "Mean Girls". But with less mean, and more heart. And splash it with a few twist and turns along the way, it's a high school, and friends we wish we all had during our teen years. A great feel good movie for the family.

SUMMARY: Highly recommended viewing. The short synopsis does not do the movie justice. Go watch it.

Pretty good

[joshuavogel79 · 7/10 · 15 August 2022]

This movie isn't great, but it's definitely watchable. Good performances all around. The writing was okay. Some things were just a bridge too far for the suspension of disbelief.

Just a s**t ending

[noumankhannn · 5/10 · 31 July 2022]

The whole movie was great but s**t ending. When the final act started it was so s**ty I couldn't even watch it. I had to skip forward. But the acting by both the leads was pretty good. Gaten Matarazoo had surprisingly less seens than I was expecting but Angourie Rice was good.

Off topic but not

[soulsastatic · 6/10 · 3 August 2022]

Another teen movie with a bullying element. For the past 50 or so years we have had basically EVERY teen movie have a bullying element within the first 20 minutes.

Hollywood and/or rather media companies are on the front line of combating this problem IF THEY choose to do so.

Kids are heavily influenced by what they watch, perhaps stop putting it in there. Sure we like seeing the good guy/girl win but SERIOUSLY you can do better without having to have a bully present...

It starts with you and the usual parenting but it could easily be just stopped.....

In terms of this movie we really have seen IT ALL BEFORE multiple times....

issues with two characters

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 7 May 2023]

Honor Rose (Angourie Rice) is desperate to get into Harvard and get out of her little town. First, she needs a recommendation from guidance councilor Mr. Calvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who is a longtime friend to an important Harvard alumni. She is shocked when he tells her that there are three other students on his list; perfect jock and student Travis Biggins (Armani Jackson), school oddball Kennedy Smith (Amy Keum), and bullied nerd Michael Dipnicky (Gaten Matarazzo). She is willing to scheme and manipulate anyone to get her way.

Obviously, I'm getting a whole lot of Tracy Flick vibe at the beginning. Honor is not quite that and she doesn't have a teacher-nemesis. So, this starts a little wonky. She's not actually likeable initially, but she does grow. That's the appeal. I do question two characters' turn. First, Dipnicky's reveal needs more foreshadowing. I was uncertain about the break-in at first, but it is good foreshadowing. His character needs more of that since Gaten does not have that sensibility. Second, it's Mr. Calvin. It's very creepy. It doesn't match the general tone of the movie even after the roofies. I expected the recommendation to go to Kennedy after the live-streaming news. That would work a lot better. Travis can always get a Lacrosse scholarship. Honor has a different path than her Harvard destination. I really don't like that creepy turn, but it's a minor bump in the road.

Smarter HS Drama

[jeroduptown · 7/10 · 23 August 2022]

I'm a sucker for a narrated movie - and to do a decent job with a high school themed one is even better. Protagonist wants to get into her college of choice by taking out other front runners at her HS...but ends up finding friends. Cliche, maybe...but enjoyable.

it's good, until it doesn't

[exlana · 7/10 · 30 October 2022]

The premise of Honor Society is an overachiever student taking down her competitors to get into Harvard. It's not groundbreaking, but for the most of part, it's fun. It's witty, well paced, well acted by the main actor, and strangely, there is little to none cringe lines and no excessively annoying characters, considering it's a teen drama film.

Lots of plot twists and turns, some of the humor are (semi)-dark and heavy, but they covered it in glitters so it's pretty to look at. Everything is great until the third act and this is the main issues with this film. It started as this 'dark-witty-comedy', and it ended up as a wholesome friendship-is-the-real-treasure-all-along type of film.

I guess it's not a problem for some people, but for me it's a bit out of balance, kinda lame, minor pc agenda that a bit too much, and somewhat defeat the purpose of the premise. Overall, it's a good watch.

7.5/10.

Very good movie, but does not deliver in the end.

[Voy_2378 · 8/10 · 29 July 2022]

Overall it is a very good movie, but ending feels rushed and generic.

Still script(loved Goodman since he wrote that Futurama episode) and Rice acting make it an enjoyable watch.

it was good, just wanted more out of it

[franklinkyra · 7/10 · 9 August 2022]

It had a great story line, i honestly wasn't a fan of her talking to the camera the majority of the movie mostly in the beginning/ middle... but i was really rooting for michael & honor. It had an unexpected but surprisingly good twist.. would watch it again but probably no more than twice................

This Thing Is Rough As Hell

[catwantsin · 2/10 · 31 July 2022]

HONOR SOCIETY (2022)

Tagline: Getting to the top means taking down your competition.

(Drama, Young Adult, Downer) PG-13

Note: This movie was released directly to Paramount +, so it didn't get an MPAA rating, but I think it would have been a PG-13.

In this one, a girl named Honor is desperate to get into Harvard when it becomes apparent that she is up against some other competition against 3 other students she feels she needs to take out of the running by distracting them from getting good grades.

First off, the preview for this thing is misleading as hell. It makes you think that this is going to be a fun little comedy mostly centered around Honor played by Angourie Rice (SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING) and Michael played by Gaten Matarazzo (STRANGER THINGS). Instead, we get a movie that only has a few scenes with those two and most of those are in the preview. This is a FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF-like movie that does a lot of fourth wall breaking but most of it is not in a good way. I say that because "Honor" the main character is a lot like Ferris in the sense that she is really just about herself and uses people. I will say more on this later in the review.

Where this movie fails is in just being overall misleading in its promotions and trailer, but it's also not a comedy. Perhaps if you consider movies like SPONTANEOUS funny, then I guess for you might be slightly comedy. I didn't see humor anywhere in this damn thing. Another issue is the actual fourth wall problem. Honor as a character is just a disaster of a person, but nearly every time she breaks the fourth wall it's to patronize the audience watching the movie. There are lots of parts of this film where Honor assumes you are basically an idiot and can't follow the movie's pretty simplistic rehashed plot.

Another issue I had with this thing is the fact that even in 2022, we are still getting films overplaying the importance of going to college. This isn't the 1980s. No one these days "needs" to go to college or their life is over. If anything college for most people ends up being a huge waste of time and money IF they are not taking classes that will lead to a real career. We also get a pretty jacked-out scene where the movie is kind of trying to paint Queen Mary (the first ever Queen of England, a Catholic who was also referred to as "Bloody Mary") as a saint. I guess it depends on your perspective, but she is well known for burning at least 300 Protestants at the stake. I have no freaking idea what the writer was really going for here, but there is a scene in here that is essentially a celebration of her.

As if not being funny isn't bad enough, this movie also takes some pretty dark turns for a movie most people are probably going to go into hoping is light and fluffy. By the end of the movie you pretty much want to not have anything to do with any of these characters. Yes, Honor does have some character growth, but this comes late in the movie, then at the very end, we are shown more scenes that kind of lead you to believe she's learned nothing. While this might be more realistic than having things work out, it's also a LOT less fun making this movie a downer with little to offer other than seeing people you wanted to root for absolutely suck.

Overall, I wish this movie was as funny and clever as the previews would lead us to believe, but instead it's a poorly written mess with some ideas feeling like they were afterthoughts and not part of the original script.

For me, this is a 2 out of 7. Not the worst movie of 2022, but it's way down there.

Pleasantly Surprised!!

[JazzCat64 · 9/10 · 1 August 2022]

I was pleasantly surprised. Ms. Rice who played honor was calculative, self-absorbed, a minor "b" but knew how to mask it. At least this is what she thought she was in the beginning. Since she never made the effort to genuinely like anyone, she had nothing to go on. She finds out that she is a good person and wants what's best for individuals that eventually become her friends. The bad part is that she learns that men, regardless of geek or athlete is an "AH" but she deserved that lesson since she initially had demon thoughts in destroying people's future for the sake of hers. I like these kind-of movies, John Hughes like from the 80s and 90s and i wish they would do more of them but i know the current generation prefer to shoot them up and bang, bang.

Honor Society turn out to be clever !

[RED_ONE_DZ · 7/10 · 3 August 2022]

• First of all, you can't agree with me if you did not watch the movie.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who at least graduated from high school cause it's not a movie that focuses on teenagers' niche.

• Honor society is a movie about not rejecting society through examples you see in your daily life and the movie focuses on not doing bad because everyone you see around you is doing so.

It's- also a story about a girl who discovers her true good nature by doing wrong acts or rather thinking about doing them as a result of a misunderstanding of society and following wrong values and principles implemented by a bad entourage and a fear of social judgement.

• The act of those brilliant kids was simply natural they perform a natural life of teenagers discovering life but I have my critics on several exaggerations which in a way help build the light drama in the movie cause it's a movie that focuses more on humour and comedy.

• The execution of the end was stunting in a good way and clever cause it has a deep meaning from what I talk about above, but it was messy and rushed in a way.

• The movie is good at its core with minor downs of course but I can't describe the beauty of its idea without spoilers and I hate putting spoilers in a review. I have to point out that many viewers find the movie offensive or think that it promotes sexual exploitation and promotion of other sexual activities which reined completely the noble purpose of this movie which made me think that it intruded the script I can't tell for sure but I'm gonna rate the movie without taking this matter accounted.

Ugh .. painfully bad

[joeyford-55342 · 2/10 · 17 July 2023]

It tries to be a smart teen movie using parts of a dozen much better movies and adds a big scoop of LGBTQ that makes no sense at all to give us a boring and cringe WHAM moment after Boy George and some George Michael. Just blah and meh thus the 5/10 on the overall rating. The use of talking to the camera is used so extensively throughout that you forget to be entertained. The two leads are good at sexy popular girl and needy, horny brain. Not as sexy as the movies she is based on. It just comes off as a shadow or copy of the many movies it steals from to not measure up. This is why it was a Netflix movie and not in theaters. Do not recommend.

Your favorite Dr. Who?

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 12 August 2022]

Honor Rose (Angourie Rice ) is one of four students competing for the guidance counselor's recommendation for Harvard. (Just go with it.) Honor decides the best way is to sabotage the grades of the other students by keeping them busy away from school work. She has two helpers.

The film was a cute take on "Mean Girls" where everyone comes out ahead. Amazing how virgin high school girls know how to use sexuality as a weapon. Must be in the DNA.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.