Weird Science
John Hughes established himself so quickly and strongly in the âteen comedyâ genre in the early 80s with Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club (an undisputed classic anyway you cut it) that when the time came in 1985 to make his next film, the studio basically handed him a blank check and told him to make anything he wanted as long as it still featured teen characters who are dealing with their issues in life. Hughes went right to work, cranking out a script in only two days and coming up with something that featured incredibly overt sci fi elements for the first time, taking a cue from Frankenstein and any other number of psychedelic / mind trip films while retaining the basic idea of two troubled teens coming to terms with their problems. To this end, he brought back Anthony Michael Hall (already widely recognized as a major star at this point) who had done such fine work playing geeky, nerdy, awkward yet realistic teenagers in both Candles and Breakfast and had him turn his own persona right on its ear, essaying here what turned out to be almost a comedic parody of those earlier performances, playing his social outcast practically like a hipster whoâs too clever and witty for his own good. While much more funny and likable than his Brian Johnson (who like him, makes a reference to having a fictitious girlfriend âup in Canadaâ), his Gary Wallace is allowed here to cut a lot more loose with the one liners and funny moments, most notably when his teen white boy winds up getting drunk in a nearly all black bar and starts to talk like all of the other (older) patrons. Even more risky is the casting of Hallâs sidekick here in Ilan Mitchell-Smith, a virtual non actor who (at age 14) played Hallâs fellow geek Wyatt Donnelly, and with his squeaky, non puberty broken voice and exasperated outbursts, Mitchell-Smith (whose career petered out VERY quickly after this and years later admitted in an interview that he didnât even LIKE Hall), is actually directed by Hughes to a pretty credible performance while still allowing Hall to get most of the really funny lines and as a straight man and sidekick to Anthony Michael, it must be said that he makes a very good accounting for himself. The two play a couple of friendless (except for each other) dorks in your typical John Hughes suburban haven who are practically almost famous and known around town specifically just for being unpopular (at one point a girl recognizes them as being the âtwo guys that got beaten up at the homecoming game!â). With their two main tormentors being two legitimately annoying pretty boy hipster jerks (Robert Rusler and the on the cusp of stardom Robert Downey Jr.) who take delight in humiliating them every chance they get, our heroes decide that if they are ever going to get to talk to or be with a girl, then they have to CREATE one, thus introducing the sci fi aspect of the story where they actually use Wyattâs computer (in another one of those early and hilariously overblown 80s statements on the potential and capability of these machines) to tap into the local power plant and feed it various pictures of girls, creating a madness filled showing of sound, light, and fury, before coming up with âLisaâ (Kelly LeBrock), a perfect, supermodel representation of mid 80s womanhood, and also carrying with her two rather charming conceits. First, instead of allowing the two horny teenage virgins to fulfill every sick sexual fantasy imaginable with her, she chooses to become rather a Big Sister / Den Mother type to them, immediately recognizing their mostly social inadequencies and setting to work on helping them become better at it, using her own sexy presence while out with them in public in order to help them become more âacceptedâ (and driving Rusler and Downey Jr. crazy in the process) while also encouraging them to just not be afraid anymore, which LeBrock charmingly plays in a very sweet rather than sultry fashion, especially when standing up to stifling influences in their lives like Garryâs father and Wyattâs cranky old grandparents. Secondly, it would appear that Lisa has almost omnipotent, God like powers, literally being able to make anything happen or even appear out of thin air (as well as being able to undo it as well), which possibly suggests that she might just be not so much a luckily successful creation on their computer, but rather instead some sort of ethereal, angelic being who has been sent from possibly Heaven to help out these two teenage boys with their problems in growing up (and as the ending implies, many more after) when it comes to instilling both self confidence and self worth. With this idea, Hughes suddenly felt free to drop any and all kinds of sight gags into the mix (seemingly anything he could possibly dream up) and once the âanything goesâ mandate has been implemented, the film itself turns almost into a free flowing stream of consciousness mostly showing several examples of teenage male wish fulfillment, as the fast moving first half shows the creation of Lisa, their first night on the town, then a trip to the mall the next day, with everyone being stunned at the sight of the two biggest geeks in town hanging out with this hottest of babes who lets everyone know of a party going down at their house that night, with almost the entire second half of the film literally being THE party itself, with Gary and Wyatt finally getting their big wish of throwing a party where all the cool kids show up but they actually spend much of it hiding in the bathroom! And itâs still an anything goes, surreal and fun party with even a gang of mutant bikers led by Vernon Welles (Wez from The Road Warrior) and Michael Berryman (Pluto from Hills Have Eyes) showing up to raise Hell as Garry and Wyatt are finally pried out of their shells and become brave enough to make time with the two sweet high school girls whom they have ALWAYS liked (who are Ruslerâs and Downey Jrâs girlfriends) which ironically is what it turns out what Lisa was striving for all along as opposed to being just their mindless sex slave. Along the way we are also treated to the only performance in the film that nearly matches Hallâs for comic inspiration in Bill Paxtonâs Chet, a military school bred, bullying Uber Asshole big brother who liberally slaps around Wyatt AND his best friend, with Paxton bringing the perfect air of absurdity to the character in order to keep him from being TOO realistic (and thus unpleasant to watch) as he ruthlessly blackmails Wyatt so that he wonât snitch on him to their parents and by the end when he comes home from a hunting trip during the aftermath of the party (and finds it SNOWING in his own bedroom!) does a lot of talking about killing and / or hurting his little brother but ultimately is just all hilarious talk until he comes face to face with Lisa. As far as being a movie by which just the very nature of its premise implies that there are no rules of the physical universe at play here, Hughes has created a goofily entertaining piece of cinematic comfort food, devoid of the serious, soul searching monologues of Breakfast Club and devoted more to the âwhat if anything was possible when you were a teenage boy?â style of thinking (just the thought of this otherworldly being coming down to Earth in order to just help these two ordinary guys try and fit in and get themselves girlfriends instead of trying to use her abilities to solve major, real world problems is amusing in and of itself) which only showed that Hughes had major gifts in portraying the surreal and absurd just as he did with most of his other scripts that were mainly known for their humanistic qualities which allowed most people to directly relate to his characters in real life type situations. And with Hall going on a tangent where he played his trademark dorky teen strictly for laughs, his much lesser known co star hanging in there quite well playing off of the others, LeBrock marking her career milestone as cinemaâs greatest fantasy woman (as she would unfortunately have an abbrieviated acting career) and Paxton delivering a smaller yet no less classic and hilarious performance of his own, Hughes manages to pull off yet another 80s teen comedy classic only this time with a no holds barred premise that hits much more than it misses and shows just exactly why a little piece of all of us died inside when that awesome decade sadly endedâŚ
9/10