Weird Science

I really love John Hughes movies, but Weird Science is Hughes at his worst. There are so many jokes and themes here that he did much better in his other movies. The first scene plays a blatant knockoff of “Also sprach Zarathustra” as the camera pans up the skinny legs of our two main dorks, Gary and Wyatt, played by Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith, ogling some girls in gym class. Hughes did this joke much better in Sixteen Candles when Henry Mancini’s sneaky and brassy Peter Gunn theme plays as the camera moves over a collection of nerds at the school dance before landing on the Geek, also played by Anthony Michael Hall, scoping out Molly Ringwald before ambushing her with his killer dance moves. Gary and Wyatt are generic, hapless nerds, while the Geek is more compelling because he exudes confidence and self-delusion, not accepting that he’s a geek.

Gary and Wyatt are debating whether nobody likes them or they’re actually studs when a couple of bullies, played by Robert Downey Jr. with Eraserhead hair and Robert Rusler, sneak up and pants them, causing the girls to laugh at them. Later, at the mall, the bullies pour an Icee on the nerds’ heads. RDJ is cute and funny, but he and his fellow bully are not interesting. Hughes made some of the best ‘80s bullies: Bender from The Breakfast Club, the troubled teenager who was in turn bullied by a sadistic principal; Principal Ed Rooney, sick of Ferris Bueller’s shit; and my favorite, James Spader’s iconic Steff from Pretty in Pink who torments Molly Ringwald’s character because he’s attracted to her even though she’s poor and hates his guts. These other bullies are complex and have understandable motivations. In contrast, the bullies in Weird Science commit mild crimes no worse than what siblings do to each other and end up apologizing so that they can negotiate with the nerds about trying to hook up with the girlfriend they created, Lisa.

Hughes has been criticized for the casual misogyny in many of his movies. Look at how his muse Molly Ringwald was treated. In Sixteen Candles she lets the Geek talk her into giving him her panties, which he shows off to other nerds for money; she’s sexually harassed by Bender in The Breakfast Club and then dates him anyway; and in Pretty in Pink in addition to the hostile sexual attention she gets from Steff, she also puts up with her best friend Duckie constantly hitting on her despite her not giving him any romantic signals. Hughes’s original ending for Pretty in Pink plays out in Some Kind of Wonderful: the main character ends up with the nerdy best friend instead of the person they’re more attracted to. The message is clear: boys should pester girls until they give in.

In Weird Science the nerds don’t have to pester girls to date them because they create one who has no choice but to be totally devoted to them. Watching a colorized version of 1931’s Frankenstein, they’re inspired to make a girl “just like Frankenstein except cuter.” They tippy tap on the computer, arguing over the size of her boobs as they grow, bounce, and shrink. Lacking enough computer power, they hack into a data center and have a hilariously ‘80s back-and-forth with a worker trying to keep them out. They scan in Playboy models, Beethoven sheet music, and pictures of Kelly LeBrock, Houdini, Einstein, and David Lee Roth, attach electrodes to a Barbie lying on top of the game Life, put bras on their heads, and hit enter. Suddenly the bras go flying, lightning strikes, the washer explodes, there’s a dog on the ceiling, and the town sign catches fire. Then Kelly LeBrock as Lisa emerges from the smoky doorway: “So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?”

Lisa is the best part of the movie. Unlike the actual Bride of Frankenstein, who’s so horrified by her existence, she burns herself up so she doesn’t have to marry a monster, Lisa enthusiastically sets out to help these two dweebs gain self-confidence. Despite being gorgeous and about eight years older than these underage dorks, she showers with them, teaches them how to kiss, and plans a huge party, telling Gary’s parents it will have “sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, chips, dips, chains, whips, you know your basic high school orgy type of thing” before pulling a gun on them and wiping their memories.

The party is where Hughes needs to solve the central dilemma: replacing Lisa with more age appropriate partners for these nerds. He often packs a lot of casual sexism into the twisty situations he devises to get his characters where they need to be before creating some of the most iconic and romantic endings. In The Breakfast Club, after somehow managing to get the girl he’s been torturing all day, Bender punches the air while that iconic Simple Minds song plays, and in Sixteen Candles, hunky Jake Ryan hooks his drunk girlfriend up with the Geek to presumably get date raped so that he’s free to appear in front of Molly Ringwald, leaning on his red Porsche. She’s dubious, mouthing “Me?” and he says, “Yeah, you,” and then they kiss over her birthday cake, all lit up with candles. These endings are so iconic and satisfying that it almost makes you forget about all the sexual harassment.

But in Weird Science, Hughes seems so interested in his silly plot, he forgets to add a good ending. Absolutely everyone shows up to the party, including the bullies and their girlfriends, who are worried that if they see Lisa, they’ll lose interest in them. And they’re right because as soon as the bullies spot Lisa, they hit on her, but she tells them she belongs to Gary and Wyatt.

The nerds hide from the party in the bathroom and chat with the bullies’ girlfriends while they check their makeup. Gary considers ditching Lisa, telling Wyatt, “I think these girls are looking for a long, lean bone job from me.” Later, the bullies apologize to the nerds for all their “tomfoolery” and offer them their girlfriends in exchange for Lisa. Instead, the nerds and the bullies put bras on their heads and try to create a new woman for the bullies. When they hit enter, all sorts of silly stuff happens: people in a photo frame start dancing, a guy gets caught in the TV, and the fireplace sucks the clothes off a woman and then tosses her, topless, out of the chimney. But they didn’t hook the electrodes up correctly, so instead of a woman, they get a nuclear missile. 

Lisa decides to make the party even more chaotic, so she summons a gang of biker demons, including a mutant from The Hills Have Eyes, who bust through the windows and chase everyone around. Gary has finally had enough and pulls out a gun and yells at them to get out. The bikers politely leave. Lisa approves, saying “That’s my boys.”

The girls ditch the bullies, work out with Gary and Wyatt that they love Lisa like a sister, and pair off with them. Gary reassures one of the girls, who’s insecure about competing with Lisa, “Lisa is everything I ever wanted in a girl before I knew what I wanted. I know if I could do it again, I’d make her just like you.” It’s a good line, but not good enough to make up for the scenes of these guys negotiating over who gets which girl.

Other than Lisa, the best character is Bill Paxton’s Chet, Wyatt’s asshole older brother. He’s got a military flat top hairdo, smokes cigars, waves his hunting rifle around, and threatens to snitch on Wyatt unless he pays him. Lisa doesn’t take shit from anybody, especially not Chet, so she turns him into a burping, toad-like poop monster with a flat top hairdo until he burps out an apology to Wyatt.

Hughes, burping not required, owed us an apology for this shitty movie.

VERDICT: GUILTY