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It had been a while since I had watched this movie, but with it finally making its way to DVD, I was ready for a great time. Class of 1999 was one of those movies that I absolutely loved as a kid. It had everything a moronic high school kid could want in a movie, violence, made up narcotics, dudes in stretch pants pretending to be bad ass, and a dude with a white mullet and an obsession with eating bananas. Of course, when you grow up, it takes a little more for a film to be interesting. It’s kind of like when you used to see tits when you were a kid and you would get an instant boner… by the time you’re an adult, every chick in the world could walk around with their top off and you’d still be like “Let me see some taco.”

The film is a semi-sequel to 1982’s Class of 1984. While the films are totally disconnected, they both have the same premise. Violence has gotten out of control in the near future and the teachers must find a way to combat this growing violence and educate the youth. Their solution? Adapt military grade robots and turn them into strict classroom disciplinarians. Of course, the plan goes terribly wrong and the robots begin to wage a war against the gangs of hooligans that run the streets in their stretch pants and silly bandanas. Class of 1999 has all the makings for a killer film, but there is something missing here.

Mark L. Lester’s film feels very small. The environments are all pretty weak and have a cheap made up feel to them. Lester does nothing to alleviate the miniscule feel of the movie, which weighs it down and leads to a lot of stupid “warfare” scenes between rival gangs as they fight like old European soldiers with muskets, lining up across from each other and firing wildly. The characters aren’t as fleshed out as they were in 1984, which gives the film a generic feeling. It’s hard to enjoy a movie when you’re sitting there wondering, “Who the fuck is this guy with the white mullet, why are his eyes white, and why does he keep eating bananas?” Even more bewildering are some of the decisions that the characters make. For instance, the principal of the local school has a daughter… and after she is almost raped he tells her she must be an example for the other students, never stopping to even ponder the idea of not having her go to a school where everyone is in a gang and wacked out on drugs.

The best part about the film is the impressive cast. The actors that play the “teachers” in this film are awesome. Patrick Kilpatrick (The Toxic Avenger, Death Warrant) plays the android gym teacher, who likes to slap around kids in wrestling class. John P. Ryan plays the history teacher whose fondness for smoking pipes only comes second to his penchant for spanking naughty children’s asses until they lapse into unconsciousness. Pam Grier is largely wasted in her role as a science teacher, but when she is allowed to act, she is pretty solid. The kids in the film are uniformly terrible, which makes you wish they’d focus on the robots a little more.

The special effects in the film are mixed. The film certainly lacks the brutal punch of Class of 1984, and most of the special effects are explosions or smears of corn syrup on someone’s face. The reveal of the robots insides is cheesy and poorly handled. Even though people are firing off machine guns and rockets left and right, the kills are simply too tame to have much of an impact, an effect that is further compounded by the fact that none of the human characters are charismatic or likeable.

Class of 1999 has the story to be excellent, but its execution is subpar. This vision of the future is just plain weak. Honestly… stretch pants? Mullets? This is the future? Kill me now.

Final Synopsis: Class of 1999 is a bungled opportunity. I’m still pissed off that I liked this as a kid, but it is so average. There goes the conceit that I have always been a genius with impeccable taste. Damn you, Class of 1999! Skip this movie.

Points Lost: -1 for poor special effects, -1 for terrible dialogue, -1 for a shitload of loose ends and unanswered questions, -1 for weak characters, -1 for terribly weak violence and stretch pants

Lesson Learned: In the future, we will all be white trash.

Burning Question: If you were a teenage-murdering robot, would you want a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, or a slowly moving drill as a weapon in your arm?

Class of 1999
5/10

Tags: 1990, action, adventure, bradley gregg, cult classic, drugs, dystopic, exploitation, future, futuristic, high school, john p. ryan, joshua john miller, latest movie review, malcolm mcdowell, mark l. lester, pam grier, patrick kilpatrick, recent, robots, sci-fi, science fiction, stacy keach, violence