KATE SAYS the thing I like about this movie is how naturally the events unwind. The science assignment leads to the date & the junkyard which leads to finding the device which leads to dismantling the device . . .
The movie is well-structured; the pay-offs are set up; and the central romance, though lightly touched on, is fairly plausible. The one major failing is that the device's effects have almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot. I think it is notable that Bill & Ted corrected this problem: the assignment due in that movie is actually for history.
What struck me the most, however, was how much this film exemplifies my own aging. When I first saw the movie as a teen, I thought John Stockwell (Michael) SOOOO handsome. When I got a little older, I thought he was an obnoxious jerk: the so-called cool guy who has goofy friends and a girl who pines after him. Now he just reminds me of my automotive students: that mixture of cockiness and vulnerability which makes them equally irritating, touching, and charming.
My reaction to the "goofy friends," Sherman and Latello, has likewise morphed with age. As a teen, I found them SOOO funny, Latello especially. Later, I rolled my eyes (oh, yeah, another movie with wise-cracking friends). This time, I found myself studying the actors: Raphael Sbarge and Fisher Stevens, who are both extremely gifted character actors.
I can't really comment on Zerneck (Ellie). I like the character's relationship with Michael. It is surprisingly normal and low-key (at the end of the movie, Michael says, "Why did we spend so much time in the same school and never talk?" and Ellie shrugs; it is a very ordinary and non-angsty exchange). But Ellie's character has no real impact on the film. It's hard to connect with her because she doesn't matter that much.
I think the latter is why the film has never had the fan following of other 80's movies we've reviewed: the characters are too sketchy. The audience isn't invited to invest in them, so much as to simply observe them. I don't mind this approach since I like to invent in-between material on my own. However, if I start doing this during the film (Michael is grateful that Ellie isn't a drama queen like his past girlfriends and his father's bimbos), it alerts me that perhaps there isn't enough character development going on in the film itself.
Still, there's something to be said for that straight-forward, action-oriented, high school drama with sci-fi edgings. Nobody did it as efficiently as the 80's!
MIKE SAYS I was looking forward to seeing this movie again. I had last seen it when I was very young. I had seen the VHS at the video store, and I remember begging my mother over the course of weeks to let me rent it. The original VHS had a picture of the main character, Mike, in a black leather jacket, holding the machine above his very cool car. I don’t know exactly what I was thought the movie was about, but I’m sure the guy in the cool jacket & car was the biggest part of my decision.
The height of the film for me when I was younger was when
they finally use the car to its full potential, racing the electrical current out to the
towers. While I think I only watched the
movie that once as a kid, that scene stuck with me, along a few other odd
details.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about watching the film
again as an adult was, well, watching it as an adult. The main character is no longer the cool and
slick hero I seemed to remember.
Instead, he’s a slacker in dirty clothes and a redneck hat. Instead of the insanely cool car I remember,
it's the car of a high school gear head. Still a nice car, but not nearly as integral to the plot as I seemed to
think it was when I was younger.
I did like that the love interest wasn't some busty 30 year old model trying to pass for a teenager. Rather, Ellie is a very real, natural-looking teen, and, I'm glad to say, not the typical love interest. In my viewing of the film, this was probably my favorite aspect. The rest of the film is frankly pretty forgettable. It does seem to function as a teen adventure film, focusing on the comedy less than Weird Science and on the adventure a little more, though not getting as technical as more "real" sci-fi films.
Looking back, the fear of technology, and the power and responsibility it brings, really resonated with artists in the 80's. With computers, VCRs, and all manner of electronics and technological advancement, I almost wonder if writers, film makers, and artists in general were afraid that their days were numbered, that the day would come when technology would replace imagination with realization. So many films in this period seem to focus on the consequences of power, I wonder if the artists were just afraid of losing the power that they already wielded.
As for how audiences reacted to this fear (distilled-into-movies), well, I think "My Science Project" is probably a good indication: it all depended on how entertaining it was!
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