Better off Dead Review

What I liked: This is an old 80's movie. That means it is full of 80's fashion and hair. It also means that it is old enough to star one of the characters from MASH, which was a bit disorienting. Full of dark humor and absolute randomness that would make Douglas Adams proud, Better off Dead is highly entertaining and moderately disconcerting. I think the film is best summarized by a quote from the movie "My grandmother...dropped acid...and kidnapped a school bus...full of penguins." None of these things actually happened, it is an almost convincing excuse made to the bicycle mafia, but really any of those things could have happened in the course of the movie. In amongst the mayhem some of my favorites were the bicycle mafia, the apparently sentient dinner mush, some actually very impressive one legged skiing, the Japanese drag racers, the space shuttle, the sword fight, the aardvark coat, and the geometry class.

What I didn't: The whole thing plays out like high school stress dreams, I kept expecting him to wake up from the surrealist madness. He never did, I guess he lives the life the rest of us only dream of. I didn't like the perms. Some of the jokes didn't age well. I thought about listing the many many terrible plans in this movie but it would take too much space so a small smattering will have to suffice: snorting jello, staying in high school for 7.5 years, boiled bacon, using a ladder to replace a window at knee height, wearing roller skates to school, using yellow rubber gloves for racing gloves, whatever those goggles were, pig shaped hamburgers, high school dances, drinking primer, and foreign exchange students, showering with socks on.

Who should watch this? It definitely belongs in the same genre as Hitch hikers guide, probably the optimal viewing group is a bunch of high school students up late having eaten insane amounts of pizza and candy. Barring hosting that kind of party, anyone who wants a diverting random movie would have fun.

Would I watch it again? When hosting a house full of pizza and candy crazed teenagers.

Comments

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