Dead Poet's Society--and Cliches about Teachers

I love Robin Williams but was not impressed by the film Dead Poet's Society or the teacher Keating, who has been chosen by Parade (!) readers as the most memorable teacher on film.  I was trying to find out who wrote the screenplay and came across other dissenters among those who reviewed the film at the time that it came out in 1989.  Here are some direct quotes:

 Pauline Kael was unconvinced by the film, and its 'middlebrow highmindedness', but praised Williams. "Robin Williams' performance is more graceful than anything he's done before [-] he's totally, concentratedly there - [he] reads his lines stunningly, and when he mimics various actors reciting Shakespeare there's no undue clowning in it; he's a gifted teacher demonstrating his skills."^[7]

Roger Ebert's review was mixed, two out of four stars. He criticized Williams for spoiling an otherwise creditable dramatic performance by occasionally veering into his onstage comedian's persona {this is different from Pauline Kael's take}, and lamented that for a movie set in the 1950s there was no mention of the Beat Generation writers. Additionally, Ebert described the film as an often poorly constructed "collection of pious platitudes [...] The movie pays lip service to qualities and values that, on the evidence of the screenplay itself, it is cheerfully willing to abandon."^[8]