Class of 1999 - a Movie Review

Class of 1999 (1990)

Here we have an interesting amalgamation of 1980's themes - sort of like a poor man's Robocop meets The Breakfast Club. Starring lots of notable B-Movie actors and character actors - Pam Grier, Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach - and directed by Mark Lester - 29 movies in his IMDB credentials and I don't recognize a single one but for this - and you have what may end up being a direct to video disaster in the pre-direct to video era.

The New York Times actually gave it a good review but I can't say that I am as optimistic as that writer. Overall it was a mildly enjoyable take on the Robocop theme, the sets were all well done even without considering their obviously limited budget, and the story was interesting and moved along at a rather brisk pace.

My problems were with the absolute ludicrousness of the story. Hey, let's let some deranged psychopath with funky contact lens inserts design three robotic teachers (who also happen to be from a failed military robot program) come in and restore order to this school. I enjoyed the robots gone amuck story but it would have helped if they toned down Stacy Keach's character quite a bit.





The acting is another story - lots of Keanu Reeves School of Acting graduates here, including the lead, Bradley Gregg as Cody. I kept waiting for him to say 'Whoa.' He really does take the 'too cool for school' acting bit just a bit far.

According to Joe Bob Briggs, this was a sequel to the Class of 1984 but I don't really remember that one very much either. I watched it on Monsters HD and the print quality was good, slightly better than dvd but a little soft.