The Woman in Red (1984)

The Woman in Red is yet another of those movies that have been on my watchlist since the dawn of times and that, for a reason or another, I've been putting off forever. Since it's only an hour and a half long and lately I don't have a lot of time to watch movies, I finally watched it. 

The story follows Theodore "Teddy" Pierce (Gene Wilder), a happily married family man who would never even consider cheating on his wife, Didi (Judith Ivey). Things are about to change when he meets a beautiful woman in red (Kelly LeBrock) — he's smitten by her and totally infatuated and he tries various schemes only to realise that cheating is not as easy as it looks.

It comes without saying that The Woman in Red is a dumb movie, one with an extremely simple and thin plot featuring some predictable twists. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it goes straight to the point without wasting tons of time to set up the story, and because of this the laughs begin immediately. Kind of, actually, as the majority of the jokes and gags fall as flat as a board. 

The writing doesn't get any better in terms of characters as they all have no depth whatsoever — the male characters are just a bunch of men who are either having an affair or thinking about and/or trying to have an affair; the female characters too are a bunch of women cheating on their husbands. Basically, there isn't a single likeable character in this, not a single one of them to root for — I guess we are supposed to root for Teddy, especially after learning that his wife is already cheating on him, but I was just disgusted by every single one of these people I couldn't pick one to root for. 

Orion Picture

And now the acting. I've always enjoyed Gene Wilder so far but in here he's pathetic, to say the least. He plays a desperate and frantic character who is supposed to be the main source of laughs, but Wilder's material is so poor, he is unbearable to watch. Kelly LeBrock is nothing but eye candy, and the rest of the cast does nothing other than essentially reading their lines.

In a few words, The Woman in Red is a huge misfire from Wilder, and, while there are some funny-ish moments here and there and Stevie Wonder's songs are fantastic, the film is overall a quite unfunny and tedious comedy whose short running feels like an eternity.

Weird Science (1985)

Just in case you haven't noticed, I've been watching a lot of teen movies from the 80s and 90s lately, partially because I don't have a lot of time and these movies are fairly short, partially because they've been on my list forever. Weird Science is one of those, and it ended up there because it's a John Hughes film. 

The story follows Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), two very unpopular high school nerds who are not accepted by their peers — while the girls ignore them, the boys bully and embarrass them. One night, they are watching Frankenstein on the TV and they come up with the idea of creating their own creature using a computer program, only instead of a monster they want to create a gorgeous woman who can help them socially. Their experiment proves successful, and they create their perfect woman, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock). 

It comes without saying that the premise is incredibly stupid and, unfortunately, as the story progresses, it doesn't get any better. It's just idiocy after another, a plot hole followed by an even bigger plot hole, and overall nothing but a misogynist teen fantasy that bored me to death. 

The characters are perhaps even worse than the plot as every single one of them has no depth nor development. Furthermore, the leading duo, Gary and Wyatt, couldn't be anymore unlikeable than that. Actually, they can as they are pretty annoying and unlikeable at the beginning, and become more and more annoying as the film moves forward — if you have read my review of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, you know I didn't particularly like the character of Ferris because of Broderick, but Broderick was way more likeable than these two — as they do something bad, eventually realise it but don't stop a moment to reflect on what they did. As for the antagonist, Gary's brother (played by Bill Paxton) is nothing but the typical evil big brother who acts like a douche and makes his brother's life a living hell. And yet he is the most sympathetic character in the film. The fact that Bill Paxton gives a hilarious, over-the-top performance surely helps.

Universal Pictures

As for the comedy, apart from Paxton's performance, we don't get much of it. The humour is just lazy and stupid as most of the jokes are predictable and therefore dull and the gags aren't anything special. I have to say that, given the premise, the humour wasn't nearly as vulgar as I thought it'd be.

The film has some nice cameos though, one being from Vernon Wells who reprises his Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior role. Unfortunately, this, Paxton, some funny moments and the fact that the leading actors were actual teenagers aren't enough to make of Weird Science a solid and entertaining film. If anything, it's just a huge disappointment as I was not expecting something this stupid and lazy from John Hughes.