The first half of “Weird Science” (1985) is so good – classic teen comedy from writer/director John Hughes – you forget how badly the second half runs off the rails. Rejects from “Mad Max?” Cruise missiles? Bill Paxton as Jabba the Hutt? Granted, the ship rights itself for a semi-sensible ending that’s a cross between “Risky Business” and “Sixteen Candles” but you’re left wondering what could have been. Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are classic high school dorks who use early computer technology to build a beautiful woman (Kelly LeBrock) for immoral purposes. She ends up teaching them a valuable lesson.
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Round up all the things I don’t like about John Hughes movies (the uberbitchy teenage girl, John Candy, Macaulay Culkin), put them together and you get “Uncle Buck” (1989). This is not part of Hughes’ “funny” (“Sixteen Candles”) film collection. This is part of his “pathos” (“Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”) collection. Candy basically performs an over-the-top version of “Charles in Charge” so Culkin and his siblings don’t have to be “Home Alone” while their parents are away. The film’s heart is in the right place, and there’s a few funny moments, but it doesn’t measure up to Hughes’ better films.
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