I Not Stupid 3 Review: Jack Neo’s Latest Chapter In Education-System Saga Is A Long-Winded Affair, Telling The Same-Old Stressed-Out Kids Story

I Not Stupid 3 (PG) 

Starring Hu Jing, Jae Liew, Zhou Yu Chen, Camans Kong, Glenn Yong

Directed by Jack Neo

Twenty two years after 2002's I Not Stupid, Jack Neo's primary-school educational saga evolves on with a new participant updated for our changing times. Namely, the peidu (study) mama from China.

Or is this devolution because, circa 2024, the same old issues still persist? Is the pressure too much for students? Do their parents understand them? Are the kids even happy? When is Jack Neo going to make a shorter, less-rambling pic?

Right here is Local Monarch vs Foreign Intruder. Rich, super-competitive tiger mum, Sophia (Confinement's Jae Liew), amps up her feud with displaced, laser-focused PRC mother, Wen Ting (China actress Hu Jing), to b***h-fest toxic levels.

Both pressurise their sons to be the No. 1 student in their Primary Six class.

Wen does it because she's sacrificed her accountant career in China to come to Singapore jobless to devote her life entirely to her son Zi Hao's (China-born Zhou Yu Chen) schooling where even half a point more is life-changing. “We are not locals, we do not have second chances,” she scolds her video game-playing child.

Sophia demands perfection because as the queen-bee tai-tai in her gossip circle, she simply insists on her kid, Jayden (Malaysia's Camans Kong), being the top boy. “I only want the best for you,” the anxious adult assures her besieged child.

Both kids, of course, just wanna have fun being friends. So it's basically Desperate Housewives with desperately stressed-out Mini-Them here. Jayden is pushed into sabotaging his classmate which their progressive, truth-seeking teacher, Mr Lee (Glenn Yong in an aptly-cast role), is quick to detect.

Essentially, I Not Stupid 3, despite good performances from both sets of mothers and sons, is long, long-winded and, like a dreaded year-end exam, it gets stuck kinda in the same old loop.

Maybe parents would see this differently. But you feel as though you're watching something quite mental-illness petty and self-inflicted which an agony aunt, priest or brain surgeon could surely resolve with a good confession or lobotomy.

At least the peidu mama's predicament seems realistic. Wen is a fish out of water grappling with a strange culture in an alien land where the ability to speak English is a formidable hurdle even for her smart son. While Sophia is a villain who's cartoon-ised to unhinged take-no-prisoners proportions that alarm her level-headed lawyer-husband (Collin Chee) who funnily gets an attorney to write a high-level essay for Junior to read in school.

Here, you'd wish director Neo had continued these wry, sharp have-vs-have-not observations which he used to be known for in his trademark sunny, chirpy settings where even the school canteen looks as cleanly scrubbed as the ubiquitous hospital here that he habitually stages as the temple of wrap-it-up epiphanies.

Alas, in his softening dotage, the man has mellowed from satirical eagle to innocuous uncle.

He scores best in the portion of the tale where the China mum navigates Terra Incognita and discovers, among other revelations, that no longer is memorising the English dictionary the answer to learning ang moh. Now it's memorising a ‘Hally Peter’ — meaning: Harry Potter — novel.

It's quite funny to see Wen find out that the unmotivated son of a noodle seller — whom she derides as being future-less — lives in a big landed-property house. And even more hysterical, like a The Simpsons moment, when there's someone in that low-class brood who plays concert-quality violin.

You're ready to sink in with more Neo-style little ironies.

But instead, he runs through a gamut of subjects — tuition classes, caning, elite school vs neighbourhood school, AI-generated answers, exasperated principal — like an exam checklist and sends his story to an average, unremarkable graduation.

That makes this rebooted flick just about passable. (2.5/5 stars)

Photos: mm2 Entertainment