Weird Science (1985)

I'm sure I only noticed this because I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) and Weird Science (1985) back-to-back, but both John Hughes films freeze on the chaos/change agent character at the end of the film. In Planes, the freeze is on the smiling Del (John Candy); and in Weird Science, the freeze is on the winking, smiling, and now high school boys' gym coach, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).

I thought about that for a while, because maybe Del and Lisa are more similar than you'd think on the surface. In any event, they serve similar purposes in each movie.

But when you start watching Weird Science, you're not worried about the freeze shot at the ending. In fact, although I've seen the film a number of times, I've never thought about it being a "Hughes" movie. However, his Chicago fingerprints are all over it. (Even in Planes, another movie I don't immediately think of as a Hughes movie, when they show the exterior of Neal's -- Steve Martin -- house, I think, "That looks like the Home Alone house. Home Alone, of course, another Chicago-based Hughes film).

No matter how many times you watch Weird Science, I wonder if you remember the creation sequence and find the rest of the movie forgettable. That is, we typically just imagine the "creation scene" when someone mentions Weird Science, right?

In terms of the creation scene, this time I found myself wondering: Why didn't they create a girl their own age? These are 15–16-year-old boys. If I were that age, I'm not creating a 23–26-year-old woman. Of course, maybe they "feed into the computer" the information that they had on hand, and that resulted in accidental creation of the older woman, and the age difference probably does make sense to the ending, when both boys "realize" that they'd be better off and happier with girls their own age.

I love this dialogue sequence:

Gary (Anthony Michael Hall): Should we give her a brain?
Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith): Yeah, we can play chess with her.
Gary: Chess? Just give her a brain, ok?

At first, they are going to give her this brain: "5th grade, slow learner, boring dipshit." Why? Not because they want to create a dumb woman, but because that's all Wyatt's computer has the juice to do.

So, they use their phone modem to break into the military computer network. Then they scan in Beethoven, pictures of Einstein, women from Cosmopolitan and Playboy magazines, and videos of David Lee Roth (for charisma?). They hook a car battery to a Barbie and wear bras on their heads. The light candles and place them on a box of the Game of Life. The sky turns red, and Wyatt hits the Enter button.

Is this the dumbest creation sequence in a movie ever? Maybe, but is it any dumber than Dr. Frankenstein's lab?

The boys hide under the desk, and the door to their room explodes. In she walks Lisa (Kelly LeBrock). Dressed fortunately. By the way, I read that a number of other women were up for the role, including Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, and Robin Wright. LeBrock did a fine job in the role, but the role didn't exactly catapult her to other roles. In fact, I wonder if she got typecast with this and her role in The Woman in Red (1984). She seems like a competent and capable actor. I wonder why she didn't do more films.

Anyway, Lisa drives them downtown to a Blues Bar, and Gary gets drunk for the first time. Being drunk kind of makes him black and when he tells his new older black friends the he's experienced the blues -- the Middle School girl rejected him and kneed him in the nuts -- they listen sympathetically. They will even come over to his party later in the movie. Somehow, drunk Gary speaks like a "brother," and he keeps the accent as they drive back home to face Chet (Bill Paxton), Wyatt's mean older brother.

Other lines just stick out to me. For example, Ian (Robert Downey Jr.) and Max (Robert Rusler) are sort of antagonists for Gary and Wyatt. They also have the girlfriends -- Deb and Hilly (Suzanne Snyder and Judi Aronson) that will be sympathetic to them throughout the movie... But the line that gets me is when Ian and Max ask Gary and Wyatt to create a new Lisa for them:

Ian shouts: "I'm shitting in my pants!"

It's just a line delivered as only a young Downy, Jr. can deliver it... not really. But it's a funny moment in the film.

Lisa sets up scenarios with the purpose of teaching the boys courage. It takes a while for the lessons to work, as noted in this classic couplet of dialogue:

Wyatt: "Do you feel like a chicken?"
Gary: "If I could shoot an egg out my ass right now, I would."

But by the end, the boys have learned Lisa's lessons, and Gary has developed the courage and is able to actually talk to a girl his own age. He tells Deb:

"Lisa is everything I wanted in a girl. Before I knew what I wanted. If I had to do it over, I'd make her just like you."

So yeah. The movie starts out as sexist as possible, and yes, a 25-year-old actress kisses a 16-year-old actor, but the film means well and has a warm heart. There's all that "good stuff" in the film that takes us to a nice place by the ending. Even Chet turns into a nice guy (at least after he's been turned into a weird toad/Jaba the Hutt mutation).

Final thought: Nothing is made of this in the film, but Wyatt and Gary come from two different backgrounds. Gary's dad is a plumber, and their house is modest. He spends all of his time and Wyatt's, whose family lives in a very nice "Home Alone" type of house. Wyatt's parents are largely absent, it would seem, and when they do come home, Wyatt goes to hug his dad, but his dad is not a hugger. (If Wyatt and Gary aren't from the same economic backgrounds. what makes them friends? That's my real question... I know it's "possible," but it's still a little unusual.)

Oh. and that reminds me: Are Wyatt's grandparents still hanging out in the kitchen closet?

Rating: 3.5/5 stars