hyped garbage

Excellent adaptation.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"Scotty" (Grant Cramer) is a young man who has a definite gift when it comes to talking to the ladies. So much so that he has recently hooked up with a great girlfriend named "Kristi" (Teal Roberts). But even so, that doesn't stop him from flirting with the opposite sex every chance he gets. It's during one of those times that his amazing abilities are observed by three middle-aged men who essentially beg him to teach them how to pick up beach babes—or what he refers to as "hardbodies". At first he declines but after being kicked out of his apartment for failing to pay rent he agrees for a set dollar amount and free room and board. What he doesn't take into consideration is just how unscrupulous one of these men actually is and the lengths he will go to in order to achieve his goals. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a decent representative of the "summer beach" sub-genre which enjoyed particular success in the early-60's before dying out a few years later and then reemerging in the late-70's and early-80's. The difference between the two eras being that the earlier films centered more on music, surfing and swimsuits whereas the latter focuses more directly on sex and partial nudity. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing as I suppose this evolution in film was probably inevitable due to the change in generations and social norms. Be that as it may, this movie contained both some light humor and several attractive ladies wearing skimpy attire to keep it mildly interesting and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

For its category, Hardbodies is a good movie to watch if you want minimal plot, and you want to countless babes topless. Other then that, this movie doesn't have anything to offer, even the comedy/humor is dumb down a bit, which is sad, because if the laughs existed a little more, I would have given this a better rating. There are a few, how do I say, COOL scenes in the movie...such as a disco ball that lights up over a bed, and there's another cool scene...no, wait, that was the only cool scene, the rest of the movie just plays out like a random T & A nudie montage. If you do like Hardbodies, I can't stress how much you should stay clear away from the sequel, it's a stink fest! The only other good point I can say about this, is the music wasn't too bad in the movie, it brings back the "fun times" memories of the 80's...if you've lived through them, then you sure know what I'm talking about.

Beach bums Scotty (Grant Cramer) and Rag (Courtney Gains) take a trio of old dudes up on their offer to pay them how to pick up chicks on the beach. Gnarly! But old fossil Hunter (Gary Wood) turns out to be a nefarious wolf looking to move in on Scotty's main girl Kristi (Teal Roberts). Bogus! You can almost smell the Coppertone during the opening credits of this 80s time capsule. This hits all the 80s T&A marks perfectly with the requisite nudity, music montages and crude humor. It ain't SUMMER SCHOOL (1987), but it will do if you are looking for a way to kill 90 minutes looking at neon designs, wicker furniture and 80s fashion. Look for Kathleen Kinmont and future Jason Voorhees Kane Hodder in small supporting roles. This turned into a minor box office hit in the summer of 1984 and saw an inferior sequel - where out lead duo is recast and sent to Greece - a few years later. Anchor Bay recently released both on a single DVD labeled the HARDBODIES Collection. Party hardy!

"Hardbodies" delivers what you should expect from a lightweight 80's sex comedy: plenty of fantastic-looking girls in bikinis or topless, a fun-carefree-sunny-summer-California-beach atmosphere, a couple of chuckles, and lots of 80's music. It does not deliver high cinematic artistry or a brilliant plot, but then again you should not expect any of that. The two main girls, Teal Roberts and Cindy Silver, are both enormously appealing and pleasantly natural, and the two main guys, Grant Cramer and Courtney Gains, are likable. The premise might have worked better if we had younger nerds in the roles of the middle-aged men, but to its credit the movie acknowledges their age and somehow manages to get away with it. It's the girls who are the most important here anyway, and as I said the casting was very good right down the line - I don't remember looking at even one less-than-pretty girl in this movie, even at the background. One of THE prettiest is no doubt a very young Kathleen Kinmont, in her first movie role: she doesn't get naked, yet her very tight white T-shirt leaves little to the imagination. (**1/2)