The Worst Film Ever

Sadly Over-hyped

Captivating movie !

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

At the time it was ground-breaking, and even though now it's not as impressive, the film, in it's time is still worthy of a solid 8 stars. Don't judge this film by today's standards, accept it for it's context.

Going into this film, I expected something just as witty, engaging and entertaining at the Breakfast Club, which nearly all the leading actors and actresses starred in. However, after watching this film, I was left feeling completely empty and a bit strange.While this film has its flaws, it has many things that help it shine. We have realistic stories with real, fleshed out characters. We understand these characters' motives and what drives them. We can relate to the core messages of most of their plots which help us empathize with them.However, this movie is like a sitcom without and punchlines. There is this aura of that this should have been a television series. This film sets up the story so well, but about half way through, it all falls a part. Everything ends up being wrapped into a nice little bow and everything seems to be perfect again. The struggles our characters face don't seem to really matter, because a big bandaid is placed over everything. The climax of the film is a huge letdown, with no major event really pushing the characters.Emilo Estevez probably has the best storyline of the film, with Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy coming in on a close second. Demi Moore's story line is a very strong one, but ends up falling apart with no real resolution. Everything else the characters go through doesn't seem to really matter. While we do become invested in the stories, they are shallow and lackluster.Overall, it is a good film and it's great to see these actors work so well together. However, the back half of the film falling apart severely prevents this movie from standing up as tall as it should be able to.

The film is aware of this(which always makes it considerably easier to tolerate), and it doesn't pretend that those are attractive traits. No, they are not necessarily likable; however, they are relatively interesting to follow. Think Election. And the things they go through are quite easy to recognize. Life after high school, love vs. obsession, relationship issues and dealing with various problems that young people face are dealt with, and it comes across pretty convincing and genuine. It can be funny here and there, when it goes for it, a little of that being black comedy. This is fairly engaging, and there is some tension. There are a few stereotypes in this, such as the presentation of a gay man; meanwhile, when you look at how the straight people in this are, it would have stood out more(as Joel points out in the informative and amusing director's commentary on the DVD; it also comes with theatrical trailers for About Last Night and Mortal Thoughts) if it had been toned down. There's the prostitute and the Jews, as well, I suppose. The acting tends to be spot-on. There is a bit of sexuality(not graphic, only brief nudity) and strong language in this.

Unfortunately this was a movie made for my generation, and unlike a fine wine which may get better with age, this was more like an old can of "New Coke" that has only degraded even further with time. After having sat through the torturous experience in 1985 and paying for the original privilege of watching this abomination back in the good old days, I thought I would revisit it in the year of our lord 2014 to see if time and experience had sharpened my insight and appreciation of this pretentious stink bomb. Sorry but the answer is now as it was then "no". It was painfully, self-absorbed tripe then and is even more difficult to watch now. Kind of like your friend reminding you years later about how you made a schmuck of yourself at a party years ago. Forget about explaining the plot, it's virtually non-existent and more or less just contrived motifs to showcase forced bad acting and interactions that are supposed to be meaningful and poignant but are really just forced shallow overacting. Previous generations had Bogart, Brando, Dean, Newman, and McQueen. Sadly my generation had...these people. In all fairness the blame can't be laid entirely at the feet of this group of too much stardom, too soon brat packers; most of them were still in their early twenties and to give them the benefit of the doubt, may have still been learning their craft even though they were being paid handsomely for the lessons. Much of the blame should probably also go to the two writers and the director; two of whom were Joel Schumacher. The intention here appears to mostly have been about exploiting these seven young rising stars in a bad forced combination similar to watching a terrible 80's musical super group. Bad musical synth pop overlays, also very 80's, filling the scenes out also didn't help. Do real people really behave in such shallow, self-indulgent, and boring histrionics? No, not really. If you've ever gone to Times Square NYC and stood next to a cardboard cutout of a celebrity, then you get the gist of this ensemble of predictable now very dated 80's stereotypes; the hypocritical career climber politico (Judd Nelson), the self-destructive, emotionally vacant, druggie (both Lowe and Moore), the overage, good girl, virgin (something out of the '40's), and on and on. If buckets of forced crying, laughing, pathos, yelling, etc., but nothing emotionally substantial for the viewer to identify with in any real way is your cup of tea then this may be your type of film. Believe it or not at the time I worked with a guy who loved this movie. I couldn't even muster a comeback to that statement beyond "Really?!!". Whenever I may get nostalgic for the 80's I need only channel this movie to cure myself of that. Hard to watch in the original, almost painfully masochistic to watch now. Glad to see that many of these people, including Joel Schumacher, went on to do much better work than this, but hey, the studio was paying and the rest was on the house.