One big cliché made up of lots of little clichés

Rating: 1/10 (2 May 2013)

I just watched this on AMC. At first I was gonna give it 6/10, then later revised that down to 3/10 and by the end of the movie I was at rock bottom - 1/10.
Why does this movie suck so badly? Not because it wasn't well made, or badly acted, but rather because the the story itself is just so awful. What we have here are a bunch of smaller clichés that add it to some very big clichés. All the principal characters are clichés, and so are all of the premises of this film. You have five high school kids who are all stock high school characters - the jock, the brain, the popular pretty girl, the long haired greaser "Tough guy" and, finally, the misfit. They are all stuck in detention for a day, under the supervision of the 6th cliché, the (I think) assistant principal, the perfect personification of (from the teenagers' POV) mindless adult authority. He might as well wear a swastika armband, so one dimensional is his character.
Now, I suppose a conceit of this movie is the five kids aren't really clichés at all, but actual, real individuals who are forced into their roles by the neverending forces of social conformity (which is in itself yet another cliché), except, of course, they aren't. The jock really IS a jock, the brain a nerd, the popular girl popular, and so forth. None of them emerge as a true three dimensional character, at best they display a bit of two dimensions before reverting back to their one dimensional selves. And the principal doesn't even get that privilege, his character is a one dimensional authoritarian goon and is never allowed to rise above that basic stereotype.
Speaking of adults, virtually every last one of them comes off badly, indeed, very badly. They, as described by the kids, are little more than beasts who demand perfection from their offspring and show an almost total lack of love or even affection. This is one of the movie's biggest clichés, the notion of teenagers as being wise beyond their years while their parents are essentially abusers, if not physically then certainly emotionally. Portraying all adults as rotten is not only completely unrealistic, it also feeds into the worst sort of egotism on the part of the presumed teenage audience for a movie such as this.
Okay, so the kids (and their principal) are all a bunch of clichés. That's bad enough, but this film has other flaws as well. One, the misfit character, played by Ally Sheedy, seems to have no basis in reality at all. And nothing about the movie explains why she is who she is. Further, how clichéd (spoiler alert) is it that she ends up with the jock, this, after getting a makeover courtesy of the popular girl? Wouldn't it have been less of a cliché for her to end up with the brain? Also, her character would have been a lot more believable had she been genuinely unattractive, say, 30 lbs overweight, acne, and hair that was greasy looking because she never washed it. Instead, it was like - 5 minutes with a mascara brush and a little work on the hair and, Ta Da! she's beautiful! And a completely different person, too! Still, hers was probably the most likable character of the bunch, and she probably should have ended up with the nerd. By that standard, by FAR the most detestable character was the greaser. The tough guy with a heart of gold is an old staple in American entertainment, such notables include The Fonz and Vinnie Barbarino. But this guy has more like the heart of a sewer rat. That he is rude and defiant of authority is to be expected of this type of character, but his verbal attacks on the others, especially Molly Ringwald's character, border on verbal rape, so cruel and sadistic are his attacks on her. He was the one character whom you wanted to see the principal beat into a bloody pulp, unfortunately, that didn't happen. His is the worst cliché of them all, the sort of person, because he is a self-proclaimed "Rebel" and non-conformist, is transformed from being a complete A__hole into the conscience of sorts for this film. It is his character, perhaps more than all the others combined, who ruined this movie for me. Cruelty and sadism have their place in the movies (think "Apocalypse Now") but they absolutely don't belong in what is supposed to be a light teenage comedy.
And that's about it. When I first saw this back in the 1980's (on HBO, probably) I didn't think this movie was particularly good or back. But having now seen it just a couple hours ago, I think it truly sucks.
1/10