Plot
In 1999, the school system has almost collapsed. Rival
gangs of youths control the classes. Order and control has been replaced by
weapons fire and anarchy. Crime is on the increase and society is on the
verge of breakdown. Faced with this crisis, a school enlists the help of a
shady
corporation to provide it with "tactical education units" - android teachers
with zero tolerance on disobedience. However the androids soon break free
from their original programming and take their version of discipline to the
extreme.
Review
There is a good sci-fi film trying to emerge from this
cheap, cheesy and cheerful romp. It's a wild cross between The Terminator,
Westworld
and The Warriors and it's ultra trashy, dumber than a bag of rocks,
full of dodgy special effects and campy as a drag queen convention.....but
it's perfect entertainment. Class of 1999 looks like it belongs back
in the early 80s, let alone the early 90s, with it's dazzling array of
haircuts, clothes and music and it's "futuristic" vision of 1999 can only
have come from that era of chronic fashion design and outrageous hairstyles.
At the bottom of it, Class of 1999 has got plenty of heart and
ambition. I'm always prepared to give a film it's due. Not every film can
have £100m budgets and teams of world class effects designers on board. Some
films have to be the poor relation. But if they try their hardest to be as
successful on the creative front, then it doesn't matter how much the film
costs.
This
is not a film about to go into social commentary overdrive. Despite the
futuristic setting about the school system breaking down and need for
authoritarianism, there are no underlying messages here and no political
subtexts. It's just an excuse to get the androids into the mix and blowing
stuff up and that it does perfectly. The special
effects aren't too bad given the obvious low budget and can be quite
impressive at times. The androids look as good as they have any right to be
despite some dodgy plastic parts and some less-than-convincing stop motion
sequences when they start to lose their human skin. One of them has a kick
ass flamethrower attachment to put on her arm which is used to good effect.
The only problem I had is that in android form, the special effects are
rather clunky and awkward and a far cry from the "smooth" movements of their
human counterparts. Knowing how the special effects would have turned out,
the script should have had the androids walk like that in human form as well
to maintain the illusion. The androids do get a lot to do but the main joy
comes in the last twenty minutes when all of the teenagers decide to stop
their petty in-fighting and team up to take on the androids. Cue all manner
of explosions and mayhem in a rather exciting finale. It's like Mad Max
decided to take on The Terminator with the cyber-punk teenagers
decked out in their bright-leggings, leather jackets and punk hair travel in
their pimped-up Road Warrior-style cars to take on the three androids
guarding the school.
Quite how they managed to hook Malcom McDowell
and Stacy Keach into the film is anyone's guess but they add a real touch of
class and authenticity to proceedings. McDowell has a limited role as the
school principal but it's Keach who steals the show as the slightly mad
albino scientist in charge of the androids, complete with the greatest white 80s
mullet you're ever going to see and matching contact lenses. The android teachers are excellent. Each of them
has their own quirk and it's quite fun seeing them act, knowing that they're
just robots underneath. In particular, John P. Ryan as a pipe-smoking
history teacher displays the stereotypical menace of an old-fashioned
teacher coupled with an even more sinister robotic nature. Watch out for Pam
Grier too as the aforementioned "flamethrower" android. The teenage cast are
wasted here because the adults are so entertaining. You actually want to see
these androids knock a bit of sense into some of them. Besides which, it is
these damned gun-toting, chain smoking, drug dealing teenagers that have
caused the school system to go into meltdown. Most of them deserve a bit of
a lashing although this isn't of the old style cane variety - this is
Terminator style elimination.
Verdict
A definitive trash can classic if ever there was
one, Class of 1999 has an extremely dated view of the future (or the
past as it's been over ten years!) but wears it's low budget heart on it's
sleeve, served up with an extra large helping of cheese.
