How times have changed. Back in the day this was made it would have cost maybe $10m, made $40m and everyone would have counted it as a great success. These days it would cost $50m, be filled to the brim with CGI effects, have non-actors in the main roles (probably someone from Dawson's Creek or Party Of Five) and there'd be a Billy Crystal cameo thrown in somehwere. But I digress. This movie kicks freckle.Take the quintessential geek, Anthony Michael Hall, put him with another geek (who was so geeky he basically never worked again), throw in some tit (Kelly LeCan'tAct) and the sibling only a mother could love (Bill Pullman) and what you have is a great 80's movie.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The computer age was upon us and War Games had just shown Hollywood that, surprise, surprise, people identify more with geeks than pearly-white-infused jock pretty boys. Revenge Of The Nerds, Ferris Bueller and Police Academy were coming, Breakfast Club had rocked many worlds, the Hughes revolution was in full swing.
And thus came Weird Science. The story of a couple of geeks who, with the aid of their home computer, make their dream woman come to life sounds pretty feeble. Sounds even worse when you hear she has special powers and that they use those powers to have the biggest par-tay of the year. But the greatness of this film is it's total embracing of the ridiculous and it's cool script.
There really is no better geek than Anthony Michael Hall. After making the physics club cool in Breakfast Club, he was the perfect choice for this role. The funny thing is that after this movie soared to fame, Hall rejected the male lead role in Pretty In Pink because he didn't want to be typecast as a geek. After the success of that film, he again rejected a lead role in a Hughes film, this time it was the part of Ferris Bueller he didn't want. He was a serious actor, dammit! Which begs the question 'why did he do a season of Saturday Night Live'?
If you forget the fact that he went straight to Corey-land after Weird Science and just enjoy the film for what it is, a fun story where the jocks get their cans kicked and where Robert Downey Jnr's hair get's more screen time than he does, you'll get an enjoyable few hours in front of the tube out of the whole deal.Bill Paxton acting like a jerk and Kelly LeBrock's career up in flames. What more could you ask?
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