I have to admit that I liked Totally Awesome. Granted it is not on the same level as Not Another Teen Movie or the Scary Movie series, but it does hold its own. Totally Awesome is advertised as a long lost film produced in the 80’s but is only released now through VH1. Ben Stein introduces it to warn us of its authenticity.
The plot structure was designed to be a string of moments that tease the 80’s and didn’t have anything to make the viewer empathetic to its characters. This is just something to lighten your mood.
The Gunderson family has moved from Pittsburgh to California just as school is about to start. Charlie is already ranked as the least cool male senior and becomes fast friends with the least cool female senior, Billie, who makes her own clothes from garbage and doesn’t wash her face enough. Together they confront Kipp, the coolest male senior and his most cool senior girlfriend, Kimberly. To win Kimberly’s attention and raise his cool factor Charlie announces he’ll compete against Kipp at the Decathlon. To coach Charlie is Mr. Yamagashi, who turns out to be a pedophile attracted to Charlie.’
After Charlie’s younger sister, Lori, is told dancing has been outlawed due to a group of kids’ feet getting loose from dancing, she reacts by screaming, ‘Dancing is my life!’ As soon as she leaves the ‘Welcome Back Stand-Around,’ she meets the ex-school dance instructor/ current Janitor who tells her of his secret dance class in an abandoned warehouse. She later becomes involved with him.
Both siblings’ stories are wrapped up by the Decathlon. Charlie and Lori’s little brother’s sub-plot is centered upon his CIA- threatening science fair project: the home computer.
Mikey Day is the attractive and confident but unrealistically ambitious Charlie. He gave the character a mix of unawareness, sincerity, and immaturity. But Dominique Swain as Lori steals the scenes for her extreme teenaged performance. She could be unpredictably crazy and calm, like any other teenage girl.
Joey Kern as Kipp was ‘a scream.’ There has never been a better rendition of the extreme stereotype of the blond, male, rich, stupid bully. His appearance from top to bottom, his laugh, and lines are hilarious. He is the reason why this film is worth watching. Brittany Daniel as Kim knew her character was not supposed to have a ‘deeper than you think’ personality and so she properly portrayed the epitome of an animated 80s Barbie Doll.
Nicki Clyne gave the most natural performance as the anti-Molly Ringwald from Pretty In Pink and the pro-Mary Stuart Masterson from Some Kind of Wonderful. Chris Kattan, Tracey Morgan, and James Hong were great extra characters for what was required of them. Totally Awesome makes jokes not only about 80s films, which are easy to point out, but how unpoliticly correct the words people used were. For example, when Charlie calls Mr. Yamagashi oriental, ‘Asian’ is spoken off screen to correct him, but it doesn’t change.
Totally Awesome is a movie that is meant to provide its viewer with a few laughs for a night in. While it fills a hole in the spoof market it is the good-enough product for Chappelle’s Show first time director Neal Brennan. Totally Awesome comes out on DVD November 7, but whether it’s worth buying is up to you. If you collect spoofs and parodies then you should. If you think there will be a time when you’ll need to smile and don’t want to think about its complex meaning, then you should. Otherwise instead of paying about $13, just wait until the next time it’s on VH1.
