OCR Text |
Show Nerds triumph in updated Frankenstein fantasy yarn by ROBIN MOENCH Record copy editor '2 Weird Science With "Weird Science," director John Hughes touches down on summer-flick turf teen dreams and computer gadgetry that's been a little overgrazed. Though similar territory has been fruitful for him in "16 Candles" and "The Breakfast Club," this time he creates a monster. OK, so she's everything a similar pre-fab character, Frankenstein, wasn' t good to look at and smart as a whip. Still, she's as insubstantial and fuzzy at the edges as the movie she's in. A pair of nerdish computer hacks (sound familiar?) decide that since they can't get a girl, they'll make one. Through the magic of science and an illegal hookup to a sophisticated computer brain Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) fabricate a living doll they name Lisa (Kelly LeBrock) who is equal part Einstein, Houdini and jive deejay. And though she leeringly Uills the 15-year-olds they have complete control over her, to their dismay she turns Shermer, 111. upside down as she teaches the boys self-confidence, courage and how to put down parents and bullies and win the high school cuties of their dreams. She's also a pretty fair kisser and has a fetching way with black net stockings that isn't lost on her charges. LeBrock as the sultry, mischievous mentor can, with a "Bewitched"-style "Bewitched"-style twitch, zap the kitchen blue or freeze Wyatt' s busybody grandparents grand-parents into grinning statues (temp-porarily, (temp-porarily, of course). She can produce a gang of mohawked motorcycle toughs for the boys to vanquish and foreign cars to impress their rivals. To test Lisa's disconcerting powers, Hughes takes us from a shopping mall to a wild party and they're part of the suburban American landscape that works well. But one stop, a black blues bar, seems out of place, even though it's the locale for one of the more interesting, sustained comic scenes in the film and gives the talented Hall a chance to shine. Mitchell-Smith is sweet and serious as the quieter nerd and both actors convincingly blossom from geeks to dudes. But you wonder what happened to their high standards of feminine perfection when they choose a pair of typical more-bounce-than-brain teenage gigglers over the luscious Lisa. Perhaps the most satisfying comic putdown and Lisa often is more vengeful tool than benevolent teacher has her turning Wyatt's nasty, allowance-extorting mili- tary-school brother, Chet (Bill Paxton) into a sort of Jabba the Hut blob with a crew cut. But it's schmaltzy to hear him blubber that he loves his brother, who begs Lisa to turn him back into the familiar thug ("It'll ruin Christmas," he says). And the accent on familial affection doesn't wash because in an earlier scene Hughes has Lisa terrorize Gary's unsympathetic dad j with a gun and then erase his memory. But just as Gary shushes Wyatt's doubts in the early stages of invention "Why mess with the fantasy? We know the reality" maybe too many quibbles about the holes in the concept does the movie a disservice. Teenagers will come out of it feeling zits don't have to be a way of life. That isn't a bad return on a $3 ticket. A Classic Recommended Good double feature material Time-killer For masochists only |