Weird Science

Let's go all the way to those science filled mystical days of 1985. When John Hughes still made movies and Anthony Michael Hall still starred in them.

The film starts off with Anthony Michael Hall and co-star Ilan Mitchell-Smith perving on a high school girls gymnastics team, before getting wedgied by an insanely young Robert Downey JR.

You'll probably remember Ilan Mitchel-Smith from the other things he went on to do. Such as The Chocolate War, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and now as a professor of English in Texas (oh, that's pretty cool, good for him! Better than fading away in never successful casting calls). Okay, well maybe you won't remember him. Shame, he has a good screen presence and is probably a better actor than Hall.

The two actors play perpetual geeks. Horribly hormonal teen geeky nerds, at that. So late one night, after being inspired by an old Frankenstein flick, they decide to create a simulation on their computer of the perfect woman. To ramp up the computers power they insert 9-inch floppies, hack U.S. Military computers (just think what Matthew Broderick's War Games could have been like if they had just taken this next obvious step... well it would have been just like this really...) and scan in magazine ads of pretty girls who are all Kelly LeBrock. They then do what's only normal after all of this. They tie a car battery to a Barbie doll (re-shaped to look like Kelly LeBrock) and hook that up to the computer as well. Then putting bras on their heads they chant a little. Just at that time the sky above their house goes blood red and starts shooting down bolts of lightening.

Then in the sleepy town of Shermer, Illinois ('One of America's Towns' is it slogan) – the fictitious setting for all of Hughes films – things go wild. Kitchen appliances blow-up, manhole covers explode and saint bernards sit on the ceiling and bark at their owners. The boys panic. But can't turn off the computer. Even swinging a baseball bat only causes the bat to shatter. All of which creates the living, breathing, chest-heaving and pouting Kelly LeBrock into existence.

Which all sounds a bit too far fetched, I know. But you've got to understand, this was 1985, computers were a lot more powerful back then. None of this works with today's lame-arsed modern computers – no, not even with Macs – I've tried.

LeBrock is like a big magical sexy Mary Poppins, who can do anything. Magic-up cars, clothes, motorcycle riding inbred mutant Nazis – you name it. And teaches the young lads confidence while getting them, into crazy mixed-up hi-jinx. Luckily the 'be honest and be yourself' plot is easy enough to ignore. After that the movie pretty much writes itself. We get, evil bully militaristic older brother (played by Bill Paxton) who gets his comeuppance. Lessons in kissing. Masturbation jokes. Literal toilet humour. Car chase. Visiting grandparents being shocked at youthful exuberance – take that establishment!

The film isn't much more than a prolonged teen boy fantasy, and it's to its credit that it doesn't try to be anything more. It hasn't aged well. It's froth. It's dumb. But it's fun dumb froth. And with the smooth direction of Hughes it keeps running well under it's own energy – though the mutant bikers scene could be a bit shorter. And now with all the 80s loveliness the film's even better. All set to the pseudonymous title track by Oingo Boingo, (other music by Wall of Voodoo, Van Halen and Los Lobos) how could you not find a little warmth in your heart for this film?

Great quotes: “So what would you little maniacs like to do first?”, “He pukes, you die!”, “You two donkey-dicks couldn't get laid in a morgue”, “If you're going to float an air biscuit, let me know, okay?”, “You should know better than to walk into somebody's house and start hitting people with your Rex Harrison hat”.

Great 80s bits: Popcorn makers. Women's underwear that looks like guy's underwear now. Robert Downey Jr dressed like a back-up singer for Boy George – it's the upturned shirt and jacket over Bermuda shorts that does it. Big hair! Fingerless studded gloves. Sequin tops. Hair worn up and to the side in some sort of weird attempt to look like they've had a horse crash into the side of their heads – did anyone really think this looked good for more than five minutes? Calculator wrist watches. Inter-continental nuclear ballistic missile.