Looking back, it might very well be true that the '80's was the best decade for comedy. It had some of the biggest comedy stars at their prime at the time and some capable directors, with experience in- and love for the genre, such as in this case John Hughes.
Not only was John Hughes just a great comedy director, he specifically was also one who made some great movies for teenagers and he really seemed to connect with his audience. He knew what teenagers wanted for a movie and what issues were on their minds and needed to be handled within a movie. Lots of film-makers just don't connect that well with its teenage-audience, simply thinking that what they put in their movies is what they want to see. It's the reason why there simply aren't any good teenage comedies these days anymore it seems, with the exception of the American Pie-series and a couple of other recent movies like that out there.
John Hughes always claimed he wrote this script only in 2 days. And yes, I do believe this. I'm glad it got only written in 2 days, fore if the movie had gotten written in a couple of months or so, Hughes would had probably attempted to let the movie and its story make more sense and would had probably put a more clear main plot line in the movie, giving the overall movie also some more purpose. But I just simply love the movie for not doing this. The movie often just simply doesn't attempt to make any sense and it's all some big fun non-sense. The movie now is basically just the one fun and crazy event after the other.
Yes, in all truth this really was one of the most fun movies I have ever seen. The characters, the events, the premise, it's all so much fun to watch and the movie basically has no slow or dull moment in it.
It's also a movie in which the main characters are actually being played by some real teenagers. A movie always deserves some extra points for that. Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith play some teenage characters everybody should be able to relate with. What's on their minds is girls, popularity and sex. Basically all the things real teenage boys used to think about. It was also fun to watch some now famous actors in this movie, in some of their more early roles. Bill Paxton is greatly fun as the prick, military, brother and Robert Downey Jr. also shows up in a quite big early role as one of the school bullies.
It's a movie with some great comedy pace and timing in it. Added to this are some good and fun characters and situations and you basically have a great, fun comedy already. John Hughes' qualities as a director probably made this movie work out better than it had the right to and he also makes this one a great one that still connects to a lot of teenagers out there.
8/10
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