Totally Awesome
As Ben Stein notes in his introduction,Totally Awesomehas a lot in common with "the great teen movies of the 1980s," likeDirty Dancing,Footloose,Ferris Bueller's Day Off,The Karate Kid, andTeen Wolf. (To that list, you can addPretty in Pink,Soul Man,Weird Science, andSome Kind of Wonderful.) He doesn't let on that it's a spoof, presenting it as a lost classic from 1986. As withFootloose--or 1990'sBeverly Hills 90210--two siblings move to a new town just in time for the school year. In this case, Charlie (Mikey Day) and Lori (Dominique Swain) relocate from Pennsylvania to California. He's a senior, she's a junior. She wants to dance. He just wants to be cool, like Kipp (Joey Kern) and girlfriend Kimberly (Brittany Daniel). Naturally, dancing is not allowed. As expected, the two plucky teens find ways to achieve their goals. Just as predictable as the plot is the dialogue, which couldn't be clunkier, and the acting, which couldn’t be more over-the-top (Swain's screaming, for instance, get old fast). Still, like theScary Movieseries it emulates, there's a laugh or two to be had, and Day is a likable lead. Written and directed by Neil Brennan (Half Baked,Chappelle's Show), this VH1 production features 1980s tunes from the likes of A-Ha, Cinderella, Wang Chung, and Katrina and the Waves, along with appearances from Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan, James Hong, and Tone-Loc performing "Crazy Stuff," the prototype for "Wild Thing."--Kathleen C. Fennessy