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Weird Science
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Hughes
Produced by	Joel Silver
Written by	John Hughes
Starring	Anthony Michael Hall Robert Downey Jr. Kelly LeBrock Ilan Mitchell-Smith Bill Paxton
Music by	Ira Newborn Jimmy Iovine
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Editing by	Chris Lebenzon Mark Warner
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	August 2, 1985
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$7,500,000
Gross revenue	$14,739,936

Weird Science is a 1985 American teen comedy film written and directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, and Ilan Mitchell-Smith. The film's producer Joel Silver acquired film rights to the pre-Comics Code Authority 1950s EC Comics magazine Weird Science, from which the plot is developed as an expansion and modernization of the basic premise in Al Feldstein's story "Made of the Future" in the fifth issue. The title song was written and performed by American New Wave band Oingo Boingo.

[edit] Plot

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Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) and his wealthier best friend Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) are 15 year olds with low social standing at their Shermer, Illinois high school. In the opening scene we see them being pantsed in front of a gymnasium full of beautiful girls. During a weekend that Wyatt's parents are off meeting his sister's fiancee, the boys have a sleepover. After watching the movie Frankenstein, they are inspired to create a woman. Wyatt uses the computer that he received for his birthday along with some help from a government computer to create their dream woman. They aren't content to only have her be beautiful (having given her the face and body of a fashion model), so they give her the intelligence of Albert Einstein, the attitude and fashion sense of David Lee Roth, and the gifts of animation, memory manipulation, reality warping, teleportation, time manipulation, and weather manipulation. Her sole mission in life is to help the boys come into their own.

Their first request is to take a shower with their creation (Kelly LeBrock), during which she is the only one naked (the boys are bare-chested, yet still holding their shirts and wearing jeans and socks). She tells them to get ready for a night out. The boys dress in what they believe are their best clothes, but as they walk downstairs to meet her, the clothes are magically changed to reflect a better fashion sense. In the car, she asks the boys to give her a name that will please them. Gary comes up with the name Lisa, a girl he liked in the 8th grade (who kicked him in the privates), which she immediately changes the license plate on her pink Cadillac to read. The three arrive at The Kandy Bar, a blues club and as they step inside, Lisa hands them IDs that state they are 21 so they can drink. Although at first the boys are so uncomfortable they can't imagine even sitting down, the trio end up closing the bar, surrounded by the staff and some regulars.

On the way home as Wyatt drives, Lisa asks him what he plans to do about his older brother. Wyatt has no clue, since he's been subject to his older brother's torment for most of his 15 years. Once home, Wyatt is helping a drunk Gary upstairs when they encounter Chet, Wyatt's older, domineering military school attendee brother (Bill Paxton). Chet quickly uses Gary's inebriation as an opportunity to blackmail his younger brother out of his VCR and some money. After putting his best friend to bed, Wyatt seeks out Lisa, who kisses him. The next morning, the boys wonder if the previous night actually happened since the house is clean and Lisa's creation caused a storm inside the house. The answer quickly goes from no to yes when Lisa calls them down for breakfast. Once in the kitchen and dressed in the outfit Lisa materialized in (a cut off shirt and women's panties), Wyatt begs Lisa to stay out of sight so that Chet doesn't see her. She tells him that he can't hide in fear from his own brother. Lisa then leaves the kitchen before Chet enters it. Chet takes Wyatt's breakfast before chastising him for his outfit, then takes his towel off (baring his own naked bum) and hands it to Wyatt. Later at the local mall, Gary and Wyatt, for the first time feeling secure in their own bodies (thanks to the new wardrobe and hairstyles Lisa graced them with) encounter two bullies, Ian (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Max (Robert Rusler), who embarrass Gary and Wyatt by dumping an Icee drink onto them in front of the whole mall. This upsets Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson), Max and Ian's girlfriends since this isn't the first time they've done such childish things. But since their guys are part of the cool crowd, they stay in relationships with them. Ian and Max then spot Lisa on the escalator and abandon the girls to run after her. When they catch up with her, she invites them to a party at Wyatt's. Gary then pulls up in a Porsche 928 and the three leave together, with Wyatt questioning a party being held in his home.

Wyatt begs Lisa to cancel the party while following her through his house as she prepares it for the party, but she refuses, reminding him that popularity was what he and Gary wanted. Wyatt agrees, but claims he didn't want it in his own house. After calming him down, Lisa magically changes clothes and sets off to pick up Gary at his house. Once there, Lisa, immediately sets Gary's blue collar parents Al (Britt Leach) and Lucy (Barbara Lang) into a tizzy with her punk outfit, drinking of alcohol, smoking, knowledge of Gary's sexual behavior and her supposed plans for a night of debauchery for their son. An infuriated Al commands his upset wife to call the police, to which Lisa responds by putting a gun in his face. Once out of the house, Gary is completely unleashed since he knows his parents are going to ground him forever for Lisa's stunts. But she calms him down by telling him that they won't remember what happened. This appears to be true, since back at the house, the parents are back to their regularly schedule boring evening...except Gary's father doesn't remember who he is. Gary is still upset and Lisa pulls the gun on him, stating that she will be forced to shoot him if he doesn't calm down...but when she pulls the trigger, it appears it is only a squirt gun.

Once they arrive back at the house, the boys doubt anyone will come since they have no other friends, only each other. Yet when the doorbell rings and Lisa opens the door, it appears every teenager within a 100 mile radius is present, causing Wyatt to pass out. Once revived, Gary and Wyatt lock themselves in the bathroom. Meanwhile, not only do Max and Ian find Lisa, but Deb and Hilly run into her as well. The girls do not know their boyfriends have already met her, but DO know if they see her that it's all over for them. As the girls venture around the house to find a bathroom, they end up finding the one Gary and Wyatt are in. They chat for a moment and find out that the boys are the hosts of the party, not Lisa.

Meanwhile, Max and Ian have tried to take over the party and failed miserably. The bar patrons and employees are all in attendance and they treat Max and Ian harshly, a first for them. They then try to convince Lisa to date them, but she refuses, stating that she belongs to Gary and Wyatt and is theirs as long as they want her. They then seek out the boys to try and get their permission. The boys relate the story of how they created Lisa and take Max and Ian through the process to create a woman for them. This causes many bizarre things to occur in the house, many more than the first time. However, in their mission to impress the more popular boys, they forgot something very important: to hook up the doll. The clamps were left on a copy of TIME magazine, which had a picture of a Pershing medium-range ballistic missile on the cover. The missile, like Lisa, becomes real and ends up emerging in the middle of Wyatt's house.

To test Gary and Wyatt's courage, Lisa creates a group of mutant bikers to disrupt the party. But the boys decide that hiding is what they'd rather do. Unfortunately, Lisa has give the bikers knowledge of Gary and Wyatt's personal business and after pulling them out of the closet they are hiding in, they use it to embarrass them. The boys don't do much but squirm while the bikers inform the guests of the clothed shower they took with Lisa and the fact that they wear bras on their heads until one of the bikers grabs Deb. Finally Gary and Wyatt decide that they'd rather die bravely than to live as cowards and confronts the bikers. Gary disarms one of the bikers and defends himself with Lisa's gun and Wyatt takes control of the shotgun. Once they have sent the gang packing (while begging not to inform anyone of their alter egos due to their teaching job), Gary assures everyone that the gun isn't real by pulling the trigger, only to find the gun was indeed real after it blows a hole in the ceiling. Deb and Hilly, having been left to fend for themselves when the gang showed up by Ian and Max, now find Gary and Wyatt attractive. They end up pairing off, Gary with Deb and Wyatt with Hilly.

The following morning, Chet returns home from hunting and finds the mass destruction of the house (including snow falling in his own bedroom). He hunts down his brother and Gary, then stands them and the girls in the kitchen to yell at them. Lisa finally makes herself known to Chet, who is now really beside himself after finding his catatonic grandparents (who had stopped by the night before during the party) in the pantry. She then orders Gary and Wyatt to take the girls home, while she deals with Chet.

On the way, Gary drives like it's the Daytona 500 in his Ferrari and is chased by a police officer, only to elude him when he races over train tracks. During the chase he passes his parents (who are on their way to church) and his father still doesn't remember who he is. Wyatt takes Hilly home in the Porsche and after kissing (along with a little something special Lisa taught him), he proclaims his love for her. Both boys now have girlfriends and when they meet up at the house, are left with what to do about Lisa.

Once back at Wyatt's, they find Chet transformed into a squat, green, grotesque Jabba the Hutt looking creature. The transformation seems to have made him humble enough to apologize to Wyatt for all the torment he has caused him over the years. When they find Lisa, she is not surprised to hear them reveal that they now have girlfriends since that is what they wanted for them. After hugging them goodbye, she them steps back into the doorway in which she first appeared and disappears in a cloud of smoke. Just then, the house begins to repair all the damage from that weekend. The cars Lisa gave the boys disappear, Chet is transformed back into a human and the house is made to rights, literally just as Wyatt's parents open the front door.

In an epilogue, the male students in a high school gymnasium react with stunned silence as they are introduced to a substitute gym teacher who turns out to be Lisa dressed in in a very revealing tight gym uniform and sneakers; she requests that they "Drop and give me twenty," to which the boys in the class all pass out. Lisa's eyes turn to the camera, and she winks.

[edit] Cast

• Anthony Michael Hall as Gary Wallace
• Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Wyatt Donnelly
• Kelly LeBrock as Lisa
• Bill Paxton as Chet Donnelly
• Suzanne Snyder as Deb
• Judie Aronson as Hilly
• Robert Downey, Jr. as Ian
• Robert Rusler as Max
• Vernon Wells as Lord General
• Britt Leach as Al Wallace, Gary's dad
• Barbara Lang as Lucy Wallace, Gary's mom
• Ivor Barry as Henry Donnelly, Wyatt and Chet's grandfather
• Ann Coyle as Carmen Donnelly, Wyatt and Chet's grandmother
• Michael Berryman as Mutant Biker
• John Kapelos as Dino
• Jill Whitlow as Susan, the Perfume Salesgirl
• Wallace Langham as Art (billed as "Wally Ward")
• Renee Props as a member of The Weenies
• Kym Malin as Girl Playing Piano

[edit] Reception and Financial Performance

The movie is rated at 53% on the movie review website. Rotten Tomatoes^[1].The film was somewhat successful at the box office with a gross of over 14.7 million. The budget is estimated at 7.5 million.

[edit] TV series

A television show based on the film debuted in 1994 and ran for 88 episodes. Following the same basic plot as the movie it starred Vanessa Angel as Lisa, Michael Manasseri as Wyatt, John Mallory Asher as Gary, and Lee Tergesen as Chet.

[edit] Soundtrack

1. "Weird Science" – Oingo Boingo
2. "Turn It On" – Kim Wilde
3. "Deep in the Jungle" – Wall of Voodoo
4. "Tubular Bells" – Mike Oldfield
5. "Tesla Girls" – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
6. "Private Joy" – Cheyne
7. "Wanted Man" – Ratt
8. "Don't Worry Baby" – Los Lobos
9. "Forever" – Taxxi
10. "Method to My Madness" – The Lords of the New Church
11. "Eighties" – Killing Joke
12. "Why Don't Pretty Girls Look at Me" – Wild Man from Wonga
13. "Nervous and Shakey" – The Del Fuegos
14. "The Circle" – Max Carl
15. "Tenderness" – General Public
16. "Do Not Disturb (Knock Knock)" – The Broken Homes
17. "Oh, Pretty Woman" – Van Halen

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Weird Science DVD Official Universal Studios Site
• Weird Science at the 80s Movie Gateway
• Weird Science at the Internet Movie Database
• Weird Science at Allmovie