Review of Weird Science (1985) by Sean L — 20 Sep 2016

A pair of hapless teenage geeks create their dream woman with the aid of a home computer and proceed to turn their social standing upside down. Not a high point for John Hughes, who directed this paper-thin fever dream of a slapstick comedy after writing the screenplay in just two days.

Hughes would become known for quick penmanship later in his career - he'd write Ferris Bueller in roughly the same amount of time - but in this case that efficiency leads to an imaginative premise that never really grows to maturity.

Anthony Michael Hall, in something of a leading role after breakout performances in National Lampoon's Vacation and Sixteen Candles, is responsible for a lot of what works about the finished product.

His comic timing is excellent, even in the most absurd situations (of which there are many). Hall particularly soars in one drunken scene, spilling his guts and making unlikely friends with the regulars in a seedy ghetto jazz bar, but that's an early climax and the film struggles to outdo it on the home stretch.

Props and gimmicks pad out the rest of the ride, along with a generous dose of fresh, Hughsian, era-defining new wave cuts. Cheap and easy, but invariably charming and authentically funny; I've burnt weeknights with worse films.