In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

A Night In Heaven rates right up there as one of the trashiest films ever made. But Christopher Atkins is so goldarn sexy in this I have to say that this film is a guilty pleasure of mine.The Blue Lagoon Boy with no curls any longer plays a trailer park kid who is the main attraction at a male strip club named Heaven located in Titusville near Cape Canaveral. He's also going to community college where Professor Lesley Anne Warren flunks him in her Speech class. At the same time Warren is not getting any attention from husband Robert Logan and she's frustrated.On a girl's night out, she takes one look at Atkins and Atkins sees the look Warren is giving him and the results are inevitable. I think you can figure where this is going, it doesn't take a genius. But the climax I will say rates high in the ludicrous cinema department.Interestingly enough while Christopher Atkins won the Razzie Award for worst actor, A Night In Heaven wasn't nominated for Worst Picture. It was probably unfair to Chris since all he was asked to do was look sexy and be seductive. He succeeded admirably on both counts. I suppose the Razzies are as inscrutable as the Oscars.But if your taste runs to trashy movies, don't let this one get by.

What would happen if Cinderella doffed her mousy clothes and her frumpy hair and glasses and dolled up to go to the ball, but, instead of Prince Charming, met a stripper who gyrated his crotch in her face? This film examines this burning question. Warren (whose first exposure to the world at large was, of course, in the 1965 version of "Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella") plays a speech teacher at a Florida community college. With her hair in a snug bun and her blouses all buttoned up, she defines the word prim. Her husband (Logan) is a rocket scientist (!) at NASA who is experiencing a mid-life crisis stemming from the loss of his job. When Warren's rather raucous sister Rush comes into town, Warren joins her for a ladies night at a local club called Heaven. Rush curls Warren's hair, plasters her with 80's makeup and yanks the shoulders of her red dress down so that her sex appeal can be shown to its full advantage. A blushing Warren enters the club to see male dancers trotting around in various stages of undress as rabid women cram money into their thongs and, in some cases, rush up on stage to fondle or be fondled. Just as she's beginning to think she can make it through one of the numbers with her eyes fully open, the star attraction comes out - Ricky the Rocket - and when he removes his helmet, she realizes that he's one of the students she has just flunked for not taking his speech seriously enough! Atkins plays the student-by-day, stripper-by-night. He, rather than shying away from her, proceeds to climb on top of her and wiggle his package in her stunned face. They also share a hilariously protracted and exploratory wet kiss in the middle of his routine! In a bizarre and not-very-subtle juxtaposition, Logan is at home fondling a phallic model of a rocket while Warren is in Heaven fondling Atkin's rocket! A series of contrived coincidences place these two in each others' company a few more times (once in Logan's presence) and before long, Warren (who is sexually vulnerable thanks to Logan's disinterest) starts to fall for the kid with a body like Michelangelo's David and a face not too far removed from Alfred E. Neuman. They take part in one strikingly vivid seduction scene in which Atkin's goes full monty while Warren keeps most everything on. Finally waking up to the fact that his wife is slipping away from him, Logan goes after Atkins and confronts him in a hysterical climax which has naked Atkins screaming like a baby. This is followed by a ludicrous denouement as the title song descends onto the closing credits. It's patently clear that some pre-release tampering took this from a thoughtful, balanced examination of a then-new phenomenon and turned it into a short, cheap, exploitation flick. The director, having won an Oscar for "Rocky", clearly lost the battle over final cut. The first five minutes of the film are devoted to Logan riding a bicycle home from work! This laid-back, evocative sequence has nothing to do with all the tawdriness which will follow. It would have been better to see more of the lives of Atkins and Warren, since the bulk of the film concerns their characters and not really Logan's. Warren works overtime throughout this movie to bring a sense of dimension and dignity to her tacky role. She injects heart and feeling into virtually every frame she's in despite the surrounding cheapness. Atkins (who somehow wrangled top-billing even though it is not his story and he would soon be relegated to television after the one-two punch of "The Pirate Movie" and then this film!) is quite horrible. Not only does he not resemble the types of men who were stripping at that time, but he can't give his lines anything other than a flat, amateurish reading. Logan (who, from the looks of his bike pants at the beginning, has at least as good a body as Atkins!) is good at playing the dejected and pouty husband, but his character is forced to engage in some really ridiculous activity. Rush does a nice job as Warren's sister, Elias is just right as a frenetic friend and Snodgrass adds a touch of spark to her nothing role as Atkin's mother. Some other supporting roles are filled by rather unremarkable women who went nowhere after this. Among Atkin's peers are notorious Merv Griffin protégé and "Dance Fever" host Terrio and "Star Search" singing champ Gian. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-him bit is Garcia. The film is remarkable in its depiction of the early days of male stripping, when the dancers came into close physical contact with the ladies, kissing them and more (all of this supposedly researched thoroughly by the female screenwriter.) It also boasts an intriguing soundtrack of songs. Besides the famous title number by Bryan Adams is an early version of the song "Obsession", sung by someone other than Animotion, the act that made it famous. It probably isn't considered an important enough film to warrant reconstruction, but an edit closer to it's original conception would be very interesting to see. The version released to theaters and home video is brief, trite, pat and, worst of all, confusing, with more than one subplot left dangling and character motivations making little sense.

Christopher Atkins! Lesley Ann Warren!! Eighties top-ten hits! For goodness sakes, the guy who played Tony HOSTED Dance Fever!! I remember that I had a crush on him.This movie is so totally steeped in Eighties pop-culture. From the first scene where Whitney shuts down the computer (get a load of that thing?) to the hot pants worn by Atkins. The Eighties (especially the early Eighties) was a time when the lines blurred between being gay and straight. Ahh those heady pre-AIDS days...At one point in the movie, Ricky (Atkins)responds to his sister complaining about his sleeping around, "I'm 21 years old, I'm right where I'm supposed to be..." And the fashions, man, the FASHIONS. The Peter Pan collars worn by Warren. The red dress complete with puffy sleeves when she goes to the strip club for the first time. The big hair! Pick ANY item worn by Tony... All Eighties, all the time!! And finally - the hottest sex scene that is STILL hot by today's standards!! The Big Easy comes close.... close, but not quite.It's not a great movie. I don't think it's even a mediocre movie. But I DO think it's an IMPORTANT movie. One day our children will watch this movie and think... "what where they THINKING?!??!"

I know that a lot of people who write reviews always try to find some deeper meaning and/or raised consciousness from the silver screen. However, some movies appeal to nothing more than our base instincts.In this case, there is not a guy reading this that hasn't fantasized about a good looking teacher. On the other hand, there probably are no female teachers who did not find a single young man as attractive, appealing, and worthy of a few fantasies herself.That's all this movie represents. I think that's all it ever meant to be. I enjoyed it - but then again I think Lesley-Ann Warren is hot!