Wayne's World

Wayne's World; comedy, USA, 1992; D: Penelope Spheeris, S: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere, Rob Lowe, Lara Flynn Boyle, Kurt Fuller, Brian Doyle-Murray, Colleen Camp, Ed O'Neill, Alice Cooper, Chris Farley, Donna Dixon

Aurora, Illinois. Wayne and Garth are two youngsters who run a local show at an open channel, "Wayne's World". They still live with their parents and don't have a job, but enjoy their lives and music. Wayne starts a relationship with Cassandra while the wealthy producer Benjamin buys their show to promote it. However, when Wayne makes fun of his sponsor, he is fired while Benjamin goes to Chicago to film a music spot with Cassandra. Still, Wayne manages to gain Cassandra's heart again in the end.

Based on the eponymous popular sketch from the TV show "Saturday Night Live", "Wayne's World" is one of those movies that charm more with their enthusiastic energy than successful jokes, yet since the sympathetic Wayne and Garth are Mike Myers' and Dana Carvey's lifetime achievements, it is simply difficult for viewers to ignore their contagious fun. Somewhere near the opening, when Wayne, Garth and their friends are driving in a car, listening to Queens' "Bohemian Rhaspody", the lyrics "Nothing really matters..." sum up how their characters are entirely uninterested in politics, life problems or social order, and only live for jokes and music. The "Camera 1, camera 2, camera 1" sight gag, where Wayne is flip-flopping between his left and right eye while looking at Cassandra, is sympathetic, whereas Garth's antics and one-liners are incredibly underrated and almost steal the show (the surreal scene where the camera zooms in on Garth as his chair moves back, until he jumps away from it, to simulate his "hallucinatory infatuation" with the woman of his dreams; "It's like a new pair of underwear. At first, it's constrictive. But after awhile it becomes a part of you"). 

A great little idea is that Wayne and Garth 'break the fourth wall' and occasionally talk to the camera, whereas Rob Lowe is delicious as the schemer Benjamin who is lisping to everyone, and then betrays everyone later on, with a stand-out moment when he tries to "flatter" Garth in hilariously fake manner ("I love what you do in the show. When I see you, I just laugh, laugh..."). However, the movie never truly blends in all these episodes into a harmonius, organic whole, probably due to some omissions: for instance, Ed O'Neill and Donna Dixon are sadly underused (the latter says just a single line in the entire film), when they are such great actors they should have been given better roles; the stilted editing at times (O'Neill tries to tell his story, but the movie cuts away from him to Garth playing with his food); whereas Wayne's ex-girlfriend Stacy is forced as the "villain" of the story, when in reality she seems like a nice girl who is just bad at articulating her infatuation. There are too many obscure gags, definitely, whereas the ending is simply no good (you do not 'break the fourth wall' in the finale, when the stakes are high, since having so many characters just stand in line and look into the camera in the last shot is not satisfaying for the viewers), yet it has such a pure concept of two people doing a small "garage business" out of pleasure that gets "bought" and destroyed by a large company. Just like the similar "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", "Wayne's Word" is simply a good 'hangout' comedy film, perfectly able to carry their daft mood and entirely relaxed in being true to its own spirit.

Grade:++