StrangeScaffold
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Weird Science (1985 film) = Finished
🕑 Added 2018-11-17 02:27:56 +0000 UTC This is a really weird movie to watch in 2018--not just because of increasing demand for stories that don't objectify women or minorities in pursuit of some dude's 'cool' fantasy, but because of what we know of John Hughes' career before and after its creation. Weird Science came out the same year as The Breakfast Club. A year before Pretty in Pink, a year after Sixteen Candles, and two years after Mr. Mom. It's not intended to be more than a simple, fun, goofy fantasy movie--but the fact that a directive for simple, fun, and goofy resulted in this, is telling.Simply put: Weird Science is a movie beneath the ability of its creator, and there are a few reasons I believe this to be the case.
The first is the inconsistent nuance given to...well, everyone, including our two leads. We'll get flashes of emotion, or of deeper stories underlying stereotypical behavior. The insecurity of Deb and Hilly. Wyatt and Gary's strained lives among uncaring parents. Lisa's consideration of her own agency as a created being. Then, we'll abruptly jump back to GOOFY TIMES with characters spitting out lines that seem to violate their own growing identities. You could claim this is actually a subtle commentary on the adopted behaviors teenagers use to disguise their own vulnerability, but I don't think that quite squares with reality.
If this commentary was intended, the plot given would challenge the disguises worn by our characters, revealing the lies at their heart, even if only in passing. It's the same approach Hughes actually used in The Breakfast Club, making the interplay of personalities and lies both drive events forward and force the characters to mutually grow. Here, though, the world is heightened. Conjured villains quail before stammering 5-foot kids, allowing our protagonists to rescue their love interests. Gary uses stereotypical black patois in a rough bar without getting his ass kicked. Problems are introduced and summarily knocked down like bowling pins, and not just because of Lisa's magical intervention either.
For the first two-thirds of the movie, I almost thought it would transform into a psychological thriller. Gary and Wyatt stumble into idealized scenarios without the ring of truth, and convenient solutions arise to longstanding problems in their lives through an animated bombshell of a woman--because she's in their heads. A mutual hallucination that allows them to steal cars, drive fast, and pull guns on their parents without fear. Often, Lisa isn't shown alongside the boys. She's almost always in a different shot. Self-contained. As the song says, "It's my creation! / Is it real?" Hughes' use of the juvenile boy fantasy perspective finally made sense. It would be subverted, in time. The falseness, so uncommon to Hughes' movies in my prior experience, had a reason. Eventually, something would come crashing down and we'd see why everything that was happening felt so off. I was waiting for it. It didn't happen.
It didn't happen, because Weird Science isn't that kind of story at all (though if anyone wants me to tell that story in a reboot, hit me up). This story is far more simple, and disappointing. Frankenstein through horny beer googles.
The characters presented feel canned. Formulaic to the point of pain, particularly considering Hughes built many of these formulas in the first place.
Here's the stuck-up rich kids!
Here's the white kid from the suburbs using black patois!
Here's the high school girlfriends going back to their jerky boyfriends, because hey, that's what you settle for in a shallow youth, am I right?!
It's like a sitcom in the classic mold, without a laugh track. Archetypes gurning at the screen for our amusement. Every opportunity for growth a reset in disguise for a mediocre status quo. This isn't a fantasy. Fantasy usually has a root to ground it, emotionally, historically, or otherwise. This is a three-stage comic, your (hopefully sympathetic) imagination filling in the blanks between panels.
So yeah.
That's Weird Science.
Hell of a song though, right?
