Picture Show Pundits

Weird Science (1985)

Review by Macabre Stalker [Ray Bonilla] :

Excerpt from "The Techomedy Movement"

While the science dreamt up in John Hughes' Weird Science was fishy even in its day, and downright silly today, there has always been a certain wonder... a certain magic to it. Sure, the technological achievement Gary and Wyatt execute on Wyatt's Memotech MTX512 (a 4 megahertz dinosaur) violates countless laws of biology, physics, and computer sciences in one fell swoop, but hey, man has never fully explored the ramifications wearing a bra on one's head so I'll allow my disbelief to be suspended whenever I watch the movie. These days, a filmmaker is likely to be textually lynched by geeks all around the Internet if they depict ludicrous and unrealistic hacking in their films, but back in the '80s, most of us were so naïve in regards to the quickly looming cyber age that we couldn't help but be dazzled by angry pixilated skulls and trippy color graphics as two high school nerds infiltrated high-security government databases and wreaked total havoc from behind the soft blue glow of a monitor.

Weird Science delivers a standard high school tale of two unpopular and awkward guys, girl crazy and obsessed with sex, that are put into the position to overcome their inadequacies, stand up to bullies, break free from their parents, loosen up, mature slightly and finally try to get their respective dream girls. The method in which the two find themselves in their situation is wholly unique however as the two kids create a woman out of thin air using a computer one strange and stormy evening. This woman, who they name Lisa, is physically everything they have ever desired, but beneath the surface she is more than they bargained for. She is intelligent, all-knowing even, and she possesses seemingly unlimited powers. Despite these intimidating features, though, she has the best intentions for her creators and hurls them into a whirlwind of entertaining and off-the-wall predicaments in an attempt to bring out the best in them and raise their confidence.

What makes Weird Science such a success aside from the clever way it implements its plot is Hughes exemplary choice in a cast. Anthony Michael Hall is hilarious as Gary, the geek who just can't come to terms with his social outcast status. He has a sharp tongue and makes every effort to appear cool, but always comes up short until Lisa comes along. His best friend Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) is his practical and whiny counterpart. Wyatt obviously comes from a privileged home where he is considered a near perfect son, but he is socially inept and he knows it. Together, Hall and Mitchell-Smith have a great chemistry, though Hall steals the show through most of the film. Say whatever you will about Anthony Michael Hall, but in his early films every line he delivered and every expression or action he made was funny when it was supposed to be.

The supporting cast has bits of brilliance in it too including Bill Paxton and Robert Downey Jr. in their first fairly large roles. Downey plays one of the high school jerks Gary and Wyatt must deal with, but Paxton strikes gold as Wyatt's hard-assed and manipulative older brother, Chet. There is a certain pleasure one derives from watching Paxton, complete with crew cut and cigar, tormenting his little brother. He carries the same air about him that he would later have in Aliens, making him one of the most memorable characters in that film as well. But even the minor characters in the film like the patrons the guys encounter at a blues bar or the killer mutant bikers at the end of the film are well cast and bring in a good laugh.

The star of the film, however, is Kelly LeBrock. I find it amazing that she started out as a mere model and never really stuck with the acting. She has a superb style as Lisa, combining a fiery attitude and irrevocable charm. No doubt she is beautiful and sexy every moment she's on camera, but she plays a marvelously devilish angel throughout the entire film and that is what makes her performance so successful.

Prior to Weird Science, John Hughes had made a name for himself with two back-to-back teen comedies, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. Both are beloved to this day, both have a great deal of heart to them, and both are quite funny at times. Both also feature more lovably scrawny and nerdy Anthony Michael Hall before he fell off the face of the Earth only to resurface as the buff and creepy Michael Hall we see in "The Dead Zone" on USA. It is also a pretty safe bet that at least one of these films (The Breakfast Club) is a much better movie than Weird Science. Still, because of the dose of nonsensical Sci-Fi administered to the heart of the film, the story is allowed to unfold in a series of wild and outlandish scenarios a more straight-up comedy would not easily allow for. The result is a more raw comedic effect, producing huge laughs in response to the characters' reactions to the amusing but unbelievable occurrences going on around them.

25 August 2008