Director
Neal Brennan
Cast
Chris Kattan”¦”¦”¦Gabriel
Mikey Day”¦”¦”¦Charlie
Dominique Swain”¦”¦”¦Lori
James Hong”¦”¦”¦Yamagashi
DVD Release Date: November 7, 2006
Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 93 Minutes
The Movie
If you’re a child of the eighties then you know what classic movies came from that era. Even if you are a child of the seventies or even the nineties, then you most likely have seen some of the greats that were made back then. Movies that spoke of triumph, puberty, and overcoming teenage adversity. Movies that brought us Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, John Cusack, Molly Ringwald, and so many more great actors and actresses. If all of those actors we loved were put into one big comedy, we would have flipped out. Yet, if they are spoofed fifteen years later, then there is no humor to be found.
I will admit that I have never been a fan of the comedy spoof movies. Didn’t like a single Scary Movie. Can’t stand Not Another Teen Movie. And never even bothered to see Date Movie. But when I heard that there was going to be an eighties’ movie spoof, then I just had to see Totally Awesome. I figured that even if it was stupid like the rest, the jokes and references would be fantastic.
Boy was I wrong.
The story follows a family that moves from Pittsburgh to California. The parents are excited about it and hope that the kids will begin to feel the same. The problems are that their teenage son just can’t fit in and is one of the biggest losers in school; while their daughter is so distraught that her love, dancing, is outlawed that she just doesn’t know what to do with her life. From there, the two storylines of loser son trying to win the school hottie’s heart and the daughter finding any way to dance are carried along through the movies of the eighties.
Dirty Dancing
Karate Kid
Footloose
16 Candles
Better Off Dead”¦
Teen Wolf
National Lampoon’s Vacation
That’s just to name a few.
Totally Awesome tries really hard to be amusing, but the laughs just aren’t there. There are jokes after jokes, but I found myself only entertained by guessing which movie they were spoofing at the time. Some of them are quite obvious, but there are others with very small hidden signs that are interesting if you can catch them. If you aren’t a big fan of most of the movies listed above, then you just aren’t going to get much out of this flick.
The Video
Seen in Anamorphic Widescreen, it shines through in all its bright colors and horrible eighties fashion sense glory.
The Audio
The film is heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and sounds just great. For a movie with some great music, it comes out sounding fantastic”¦err, tubular.
Special Features
Commentary Featuring Tracy Morgan & Neal Brennan –
Deleted Scenes – A bunch of scenes introduced by Neal Brennan and Joey Kern. The movie I don’t think could have improved or really have gotten worse by keeping them in.
Bloopers & Outtakes – One of the worst bloopers reels I’ve seen on any DVD ever. Each and every blooper is actually introduced by Brennan and Kern and set up before they get to them, just like the deleted scenes. That takes even more away from bloopers that are already not funny.
Tracy Morgan: 7 Minutes Of Ad Libs – Tracy Morgan ad-libbing his lines in some different outtakes. Sigh”¦7 more minutes of unfunniness.
Joey Kern is Kipp Vanderhoff – A bunch more outtakes of Kern as his character Kipp. Yep, that’s about it.
Kipp Vanderhoff: A Nightmare Of Condescending Laughter – Three and a half minutes of Kipp laughing. Seriously.
Dancing Is Hard – A lot of dancing and even more outtakes. But this time of them dancing, so it’s kind of different.
Previews – Trailers for the DVD sets of So Notorious, Flavor Of Love, and Chappelle’s Show.
DVD Credits – 26 seconds of credits for who worked on the DVD are actually a special feature.
The Inside Pulse
It was a somewhat valiant attempt, but Totally Awesome just won’t stand the test of time as the film that pulled our favorite eighties’ movies together. They just tried way too hard and overacted in extreme amounts to the point where it got annoying rather then funny. Combine that with the special features being 50% outtakes and 50% introductions to the outtakes and you’ve got a DVD that may be worth a rental. But only if you know that nobody puts Baby in the corner.
