Dreadful. Hard to believe that even the current crop of writer/director John Hughes acolytes would stand up for this also-ran item. (And with only eight directing credits, there’s not much product to spare.) A FRANKENSTEIN sendup (watch for the colorized clip from the ‘31 classic) that morphs into HORNY CAT IN THE HAT, Anthony Michael Hall is Nerd Number One, a high school loser with three ‘funny’ faces for all occasions, while Nerd Number Two Ilan Mitchell-Smith speaks with an adenoidal voice to let us know either puberty or Jerry Lewis is about to show up. Together, they create Living Doll Kelly LeBrock to cook & strip for them. (The boys prefer breakfast.) As big brother Marine, home to keep order, Bill Paxton gets a couple of decent laughs, but the whole idea is deeply creepy even as a teen fantasy with a sentimental copout moral: Be Yourself. And even worse when aliens show up (don’t ask) and Hughes thinks it funny to have a huge Black guy on hand (at an otherwise All-White teen party) to faint in fear. Staged and lit to look like a CostCo warehouse, the film may not be Hughes’ worst, but seems so as you watch.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: If you’re trying to boost Hughes’ rep, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF/’86 and PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES/’87 probably make the best case.
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