by Lyndall Hobbs, 1987.
Starring: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Tommy Hinkley, Lori Loughlin, Demian Slade, and Connie Stevens.
Rating: 9/10, 2.5/10.
There is nothing, at all, great about this movie. Or at least, nothing great in the sense that Citizen Kane, for example, is "great." What it is is absolutely hilarious, never tiresome for a second, and a completely entertaining movie from start to finish.
Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, the stars of the "beach party" movies of the early 60s (playing themselves), are older now, married, and living in Ohio, where Annette is a peanut-butter obsessed housewife and Frankie is a selling-obsessed used car salesman. They have two children: Bobby, a junior high punk (Slade, who happens to be Mink Stole’s nephew), and Sandi (Loughlin), who is older and living at the same beach Annette and Frankie used to hang out on. Frankie and Annette decide that they need a vacation, so they fly off to Hawaii, planning to only stop for a few hours in California to visit Sandi. And here’s where the major family friction starts: Sandi’s living with Michael (Hinkley), a surfer who she (gasp) ISN’T MARRIED TO!, which enrages the conservative Frankie. Michael, too, gets mad at Sandi for not letting him stay with her while the family’s there. Meanwhile, Frankie himself runs across Connie Stevens (also playing herself), the "bad girl" from the original movies, and they flirt a bit, which gets Annette good and pissed off. The fun of the movie is getting the whole family back together.
It’s 1987, and it’s a surf movie, and it’s a musical (sort of), so there’s a lot of really awful music, but none that isn’t awful enough to be fun. And there’s some really good music, too (in a kitschy way, sure, but good nonetheless), like when Annette randomly runs across Fishbone on the beach, and they team up to sing one of the best "new-sensation-sweeping-the-nation" songs I’ve ever heard, "Jamaica Ska." The high point of the film is when Pee-Wee Herman (yes, Pee-Wee) comes out of nowhere, sings "Surfin’ Bird" (while people in crazy clown wigs dance behind him), and then flies off into the air on a surfboard. I’m not kidding—there’s no explanation, no one seems to think it’s odd, and it doesn’t matter. It’s great anyway.
Any description of this movie is going to make it sound stupid. And that’s because it is, really. But it’s also funny, satiric, witty (in a way), and relentlessly ENTERTAINING.