This isn't my favorite John Hughes movie, but Weird Science is unique within the Hughes' formula of trashing teen cliques and ensuring misunderstood people managing to hook up with the hottest guy or girl in their school. There's some of that to be sure, but there's a decided sci-fi bent to this that makes me smile every time I watch this movie. When you come right down to it, even mediocre and bizarre John Hughes is better than none at all. It's like pizza that way.
For me, this film is charming in that 80s teen comedy way: it hearkens me back to a decade that I wish I had been old enough to truly experience. I was seven in '85, so I was there, but I would kill to have been 16 or 17 back then, although I'm not sure I'd be okay with being 44 today. This movie also makes me wish that Anthony Michael Hall had bigger parts in every movie he's ever been in. He may not have been leading man (or even leading boy) material back then, but he was funny and.... I'll say charming in a way that no one else in that age bracket was. I know he still appears in cameos from time to time; the last time I saw him was in Trojan War, where he plays a merrily homicidal bus driver. Again, it was a character I would have liked to have seen more of.
I know that I've complained about people playing the same part ad nauseum, but I'm not going to do that with Anthony Michael Hall. I'd normally be even more likely to complain because I've watched this guy play the same basic character in three different John Hughes movies: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and this. I guess if I have to watch him revisit a role, I'm okay with it so long as it's a good performance. I probably feel the same way about Sandra Bullock, since I eventually see all of her movies, and it's always a rehash of her last romcom.
As much as I love Anthony Michael Hall, I'm not so crazy about the rest of the cast, with the exception of Kelly LeBrock, who played her role with what looked like genuine affection for those boys. I would have liked this better if it had included more of the usual suspects from John Hughes' movies. I'm not talking Molly Ringwald, but it would have been cool to see Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey, Jr play Wyatt and Chet.
