CLASS OF 1999 (1990)
This is one of those, “what the actual heck” movies that also manages to hit frighteningly close to home while still being a bit fun. Seattle has run into some hard times with violent gangs, drugs and death ruling the streets. As a result Seattle’s Kennedy High is chosen as a free-fire zone and an independent company takes over the schools teaching (in the form of former military cyborgs as undercover android educators), because the police won’t even go to the area and everything sucks. Dr. Miles Langford, (effectively played by Malcolm McDowell) is the principal of the school and it doesn’t take long before him, his daughter Christie (played by Traci Lind) and her super nosey jerk of a friend Cody (played by Bradley Gregg) discover the secretive teachers are glitching out. How the crap is Cody supposed to get his life back together with his freakin dysfunctional family, and his android teachers becoming more aggressive by the minute? Can you answer me that? No you can’t, because you are reading this instead of thinking about the CLASS OF 1999. Kidding, okay lets dig into this a bit.
For me this thing has a bit of a ROBOCOP 2 feel where things are so chaotic, that it feels like no matter what happens in the movie, for Seattle in this movie, Detroit in that movie, things as a society are going to be crappier. Finding stories in this kind of chaos, that work to resolve anything, just seem kind of pointless. However CLASS OF 1999 does a pretty good job of making you center in on Cody and Christie and how they will overcome the challenges presented in the movie. There is actually a slight bit of character development, some you like far less and some you end up appreciating. Some may recognize Traci Lind from FRIGHT NIGHT 2 and MY BOYFRIEND’S BACK. It also features the legendary Pam Grier who has been in everything from JACKIE BROWN to ESCAPE FROM LA.
If I have any issues with this movie, it’s just that it feels a bit disjointed and the editing is rough in some parts. Outside of that however this movie gets better and better as it progresses. As much as I thought this thing was going to be just a sloppy b-movie (and was going to be totally fine with that) it actually ends up playing out more like TERMINATOR on crack with a pretty interesting plot. It is very easy to see why this movie has a bit of a cult following and still resonates with sci-fi horror fans today. I will say that this thing is pretty tame when it comes to gore but there is plenty of robot craziness as this flick moves along. So if you are going into this thinking it’s a full blown horror movie, that isn’t really the case. It’s more along the lines of TERMINATOR or HANDS OF STEEL only with more cyber-gore if that makes any sense.
I give this movie a 5 OUT OF 7. Probably not something I would buy, but it’s a good movie if you are on a “let’s watch homicidal androids” movie marathon.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF LIGHTNING PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless. Until next time.
Comments
Post a Comment