Metacritic reviews

Delivers an easily digestible and amusing portrait of youthful hijinks that should well please its target audience.

It's a fun, rebellious romp that celebrates creativity and outside-the-box thinking, though parents might hope that their children won't be too inspired to copy the elaborate pranks that these characters pull off.

The film mixes vivid cartoons coming to life from the pages of Rafe’s sketchbook with the live action. The film is reminiscent of some of the best aspects of John Hughes’ teen movies: playful albeit with strong emotional centers that ground their suburban teen rebels.

It's a so-so film with jarring tone changes and a plot that sputters before a predictable ending. But there are moments of inspiration and authenticity.

Ironically, Middle School’s message is about encouraging kids and grown-ups to think outside the box and yet, the filmmakers themselves do precisely the opposite.

The find here is Alexa Nisenson as Georgia, Rafe’s know-it-all little sister, who takes cars out for a spin. She is blessed with the best lines, comic and dramatic, and appears delightfully cognizant of the fact. If only the movie had more of her.

Unimaginatively directed and indifferently shot, the film never establishes a distinctive voice for itself.

Though its title and general tone lament the stifling atmosphere of the years between childhood and full-fledged teenhood, the movie misses the animal hostility and physical awkwardness of genuine tweens.

The film’s lone strength is the fleeting dramatic scenes offering a little back story — and pathos — on Rafe’s home life with his sweetly understanding single mom (Lauren Graham, who you’d guess wouldn’t have bothered otherwise).

The film’s attempts at comedy and sentimentality are equally unsuccessful, resulting in a movie that feels more like a third-rate “Saved by the Bell” knock-off than a legitimate teen flick.