Weird Science (film)

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This article is about the film. For the TV show based on the film, see Weird Science (TV series). For other uses, see Weird Science.
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Weird Science

Theatrical release poster
Directed by John Hughes
Produced by Joel Silver
Written by John Hughes
Starring Anthony Michael Hall
Kelly LeBrock
Ilan Mitchell-Smith
Bill Paxton
Music by Ira Newborn
Jimmy Iovine
Cinematography Matthew F. Leonetti
Editing by Chris Lebenzon
Mark Warner
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) August 2, 1985
Running time 94 min.
Country United States
Language English

Weird Science is a 1985 teen film written and directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, and Ilan Mitchell-Smith. The film's producer Joel Silver acquired film rights to the pre-Comics Code Authority 1950s EC Comics magazine Weird Science, from which the plot is developed as an expansion and modernization of the basic premise in Al Feldstein's story "Made of the Future" in the fifth issue. The title song was written and performed by American New Wave band Oingo Boingo.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) are average, disenfranchised teenagers with low social standing at their Shermer, Illinois high school; in the opening scene we see them being pantsed in front of a gymnasium full of beautiful girls. Frustrated that they can't score with real girls, they hack into a government computer to create their dream woman based on the data of, among others, various photomodels, Albert Einstein and David Lee Roth. The result is Lisa (Kelly LeBrock), a beautiful and intelligent young woman with superhuman powers, including animation, memory manipulation, reality warping, teleportation, time manipulation, and weather manipulation; although she's clearly out of Gary's and Wyatt's league, she's still unswervingly loyal to them.

Lisa immediately sets about helping Gary and Wyatt to gain self confidence and popularity. The three of them take a trip to a bar for a night of drinking, and return home, where they encounter Wyatt's older, domineering brother Chet (Bill Paxton) who uses this as an opportunity to blackmail Wyatt. At the local mall, Gary and Wyatt encounter two bullies, Ian (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Max (Robert Rusler), who embarrass Gary and Wyatt by dumping an Icee drink onto them. This upsets Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson), Max and Ian's girlfriends. To boost Gary and Wyatt's appeal, Lisa seems to magically summon a "new" Porsche 928 for Gary and invites Max and Ian to a party at Wyatt's house.

Gary's parents Al (Britt Leach) and Lucy (Barbara Lang) are taken aback by Lisa's personality and presumptions that they are not properly raising their son. As Gary readies to be grounded, Lisa brandishes a gun, forcing the Wallaces to let Gary go, and then wipes his parents' memory of the incident, resulting in Al to forget who Gary was completely. Lisa reveals to Gary that her gun is a squirt gun but only she seems to be amused by the joke. At the Donnelly house, the party is a blast of uncontrolled teenage paradise, except that Gary and Wyatt lock themselves in the bathroom out of nervousness, only to be confronted by Deb and Hilly. The boys determine they must have a good time, even if only to impress the girls. Bizarre circumstances plague the party; the entire kitchen becomes a blue-walled room resembling an ER. Wyatt's grandparents pay a visit and Lisa freezes them and puts them in the cupboard. Gary and Wyatt are bullied by Max and Ian into replicating the process of creating Lisa so they can have girls for themselves. Unfortunately, this only irritates Lisa and the experiment instead conjures up a Pershing medium-range ballistic missile. Lisa creates a group of mutant bikers to rampage the party in order to test Gary and Wyatt's courage. Gary, in a show of bravado, confronts the bikers, wielding the gun that Lisa had shown him earlier, as he and Wyatt face down the bikers and send them running. To their shock the gun had magically been made real. Hilly and Deb fall for Wyatt and Gary. In the wake of the destruction, they finally end up going to sleep. The following morning, Wyatt's bullying brother Chet returns home and sees the mass destruction of the house, his grandparents in the cupboard, and snow falling in his bedroom. With a shotgun, Chet threatens all four of the teens with blackmail. Lisa, revealing herself to Chet for the first time, orders Gary and Wyatt to take their new friends home, while she deals with Chet.

Gary barely avoids getting arrested for speeding, and his parents see him; his father still does not know who 'Gary' is. Both Gary and Wyatt express their interest in the girls they are with, and each girl reciprocates. Upon their return home, they find that Chet has been transformed into a large, grotesque toad-like creature. Lisa is also now aware that Gary and Wyatt finally found girls their own age whom they like and who like them back. In a teary goodbye, Lisa's departure begins to 'undo' the damage from the previous night's chaos. Their sports cars vanish as Chet returns to "normal" and everything returns to its proper place just in time for Wyatt's parents to return home. In an epilogue, the students in a high school gymnasium are greeted with a stunned silence as they are introduced to a substitute gym teacher, revealing Lisa in a tight uniform; the boys in the class all pass out. Lisa's eyes turn to the camera, and she winks.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Reception

The movie is rated at 53 percent on the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes[1]. Despite mixed reviews, the film has become a cult classic and is one of the most well-known films of the high-school-in-the-80s genre.

[edit] TV series

Main article: Weird Science (TV series)

A television show based on the film debuted in 1994 and ran for 88 episodes. Following the same basic plot as the movie it starred Vanessa Angel as Lisa, Michael Manasseri as Wyatt, John Mallory Asher as Gary, and Lee Tergesen as Chet.

[edit] Soundtrack

  1. "Weird Science" – Oingo Boingo
  2. "Turn It On" – Kim Wilde
  3. "Deep in the Jungle" – Wall of Voodoo
  4. "Tubular Bells" – Mike Oldfield
  5. "Tesla Girls" – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  6. "Private Joy" – Cheyne
  7. "Wanted Man" – Ratt
  8. "Don't Worry Baby" – Los Lobos
  9. "Forever" – Taxxi
  10. "Method to My Madness" – The Lords of the New Church
  11. "Eighties" – Killing Joke
  12. "Why Don't Pretty Girls Look at Me" – Wild Man from Wonga
  13. "Nervous and Shakey" – The Del Fuegos
  14. "The Circle" – Max Carl
  15. "Tenderness" – General Public
  16. "Do Not Disturb (Knock Knock)" – The Broken Homes
  17. "Oh, Pretty Woman" – Van Halen

[edit] Filming locations

  • The boys live in Shermer, Illinois, a fictitious suburb of Chicago. The mall scene in Weird Science took place at Northbrook Court on Northbrook, Illinois. It has since been heavily modified.
  • The exterior high school used was New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Illinois.
  • The car chase scene at the end of the movie takes place on St. John's Ave. in Highland Park. When they turn the corner, they are on Central Ave. in Highland Park.
  • The house from the movie was also used in Donnie Darko and Not Another Teen Movie. It is located at 4252 Country club drive Long Beach, California.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1023316-weird_science/

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Science_(film)"