Directed by Penelope Spheeris;
written by Mike Myers and Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner,
Cast: Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere Noah, Brian Doyle-Murray, Lara Flynn Boyle , Michael DeLuise, Dan Bell
At least the world of Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) is a cozy place. It's crammed with all the pop-cultural junk mail that helped make Wayne and Garth whatever they are today. The familiar sitcoms and advertisements and heavy-metal hits that shaped their consciousness have become, for Wayne and Garth, just so many friendly signposts on the path from one loud party to the next. As a matter of fact, these are the only signposts. Simply being able to identify them -- anything from Led Zeppelin to "Laverne and Shirley," anyone from Claudia Schiffer to Dick Van Patten -- is a large part of appreciating Wayne and Garth's marginal humor.
H. L. Mencken may have noted that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, but not even he could have anticipated this. Like Bill and Ted, their principal rivals among screen duos who play dumb, Wayne and Garth do their best to elevate stupidity to an art form. In "Wayne's World," a feature-length spinoff of their "Saturday Night Live" routines, Wayne and Garth engage in soul-searching ("Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played a girl bunny?"), pursue their hobbies (lying near an airport runway to enjoy the blast of a takeoff or landing) and use cute names (like "spew" or "hurl") for throwing up. It's hard to be this idiotic without also being at least a little bit smart.
Penelope Spheeris, who directed two lively and insightful "Decline of Western Civilization" documentaries (the first about punk rockers, the second and better one about heavy-metal wannabes), is obviously the right person for looking on the bright side of Wayne and Garth's appeal. For instance, Ms. Spheeris understands that there's something inexplicably funny about four long-haired, partied-out dimwits crammed into a small car and lip-synching the pseudo-operatic vocals to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." She knows that in Wayne's world, it would make sense for a guitar store to have a "No Stairway to Heaven" sign for customers trying out the equipment.
Perhaps she also realizes that Wayne and Garth can't support a feature-length movie on their own, but Ms. Spheeris does a lot to keep them busy. An uneventful screenplay (by Mr. Myers, Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner) has been embellished with as many sight gags as the traffic will bear, from Garth's collie (which wears Garth's spiky hairdo plus studded leather wristlets) to a quick "Terminator 2" joke to a guest appearance by Alice Cooper, who, of course, is one of Wayne and Garth's idols. Greeting these awestruck fans backstage after a concert, Mr. Cooper does the funniest thing he can do under the circumstances, which is to discuss the history of Milwaukee.
"Wayne's World" supposes that Wayne and Garth's late-night, public-access television show, the one they do from the sofa in Wayne's basement, is so good that a wily television executive (Rob Lowe) will scheme to exploit their commercial potential. Already straining credulity, the film does little more than steer its stars from one hangout to the next while Mr. Lowe, modeling many changes of clothes and proving himself a good comic sport, plays the heel.
Further window-dressing is provided in the form of Tia Carrere, playing a gorgeous Chinese rock-and-roll hopeful who is pursued by both the television executive and Wayne (and who learned English, she says, from "Police Academy" movies). Ms. Carrere first appears in white shorts, stockings, garters and a white halter top cut like a modified motorcycle jacket, which should offer some idea of the film's target audience.
Also in "Wayne's World" are Brian Doyle-Murray as a potential sponsor seeking to get on the Wayne and Garth bandwagon, and Lara Flynn Boyle as the deranged beauty who won't leave Wayne alone; once again, the irresistible appeal of Wayne is overplayed. The film tends to be funny when confining itself to short sketches or dopey television-based humor, flat when pretending to be anything more.
Mr. Myers and Mr. Carvey see to it that the overconfident Wayne and the nervous, insecure Garth complement each other, even if Garth seems destined to do something truly dangerous one day. Playing with doughnuts and toothpicks in a coffee shop, he seems to be merrily imitating Norman Bates's mother.
I walked into "Wayne's World" expecting a lot of dumb, vulgar comedy, and I got plenty, but I also found what I didn't expect: a genuinely amusing, sometimes even intelligent, undercurrent. Like the "Bill & Ted" movies, this one works on its intended level and then sneaks in excursions to some other levels, too.
The movie is inspired by "Saturday Night Live's" long-running parody of local access cable TV. "Wayne's World" originates from the paneled basement room of its host, Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers), who looks to be in his late 20s but still lives at home with his parents in Aurora. Wayne's sidekick is Garth Algar (Dana Carvey), looking uncannily like Arte Johnson and operating with the brain power of a clever 7-year-old. The two of them interview strange guests, drool over posters of their favorite models and use the word "excellent" a whole lot.
Onto this basic situation, director Penelope Spheeris and writers Myers, Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner have grafted a plot of overwhelming predictability: An ad executive (Rob Lowe) spots their show, and sees it as the ideal vehicle for a client (Brian Doyle-Murray) who owns a chain of video arcades. Wayne and Garth don't want to sell out for the big bucks (individual cashier's checks for $5,000), but get outsmarted. And meanwhile Wayne falls in love with a foxy Chinese chick (Tia Carrere) who's the lead singer in a heavy metal band. Of course Lowe tries to win her away from him, which leads up to the final emotional showdown, etc., etc.
The plot is not exactly the point here. It's only a clothesline. What is funny about "Wayne's World" - sometimes really funny - are the dialogue and sight gags. The movie wants to be a laffaminit extravaganza like the Zucker & Abrahams productions, but with slyer humor, more inside jokes, throwaway references and just plain goofiness, as when the characters occasionally break into their own language. Some of the biggest laughs in the film could not possibly be described, because their humor depends entirely on the fact that the filmmakers were weird enough to go for them in the first place.
One quality that grew on me during the film was Myers' conversations with the camera. In a sense, this whole movie is a cable access documentary on his life, and particularly on his great and helpless crush on Tia Carrere. The Dana Carvey character doesn't wear as well; the fact that his personality has a severely limited range of notes doesn't prevent him from playing them over and over.
But the movie is so good-spirited we forgive him.
A few days before "Wayne's World" was screened, I got a letter from my local cable access people, advising me of some of the real shows they run, and asking me to have a look. I have already been looking, but my reactions may not please them very much. In a way, their best programs are their worst ones - because in aspiring to professionalism, they aspire also to the canned predictability of routine TV. The access shows I like the best are the ones on which I can never be sure what is going to happen next. "Wayne's World" gets that right.
Those "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" ripoffs, Wayne & Garth, leap from their popular "Saturday Night Live" skit to the big screen in "Wayne's World." Well, maybe not leap. Limp might be more like it.
The film allows the boys to maintain their valley boy accents, the steady stream of pop-culture references and Wayne's smug-hip attitude, adding to the mix an off-the-wall sense of humor in the "Naked Gun" vein.
But, as is often the case with TV skits that are turned into movies, "Wayne's World" wears out its welcome after awhile and is never quite as funny as it thinks it is.
That isn't to say that fans of the characters played by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey will be disappointed � they probably won't. But this film won't win over any converts, either.
The nominal story has Wayne and Garth being approached by a high-rolling TV producer (Rob Lowe) who sees the boys' late-night cable access program as a potential moneymaker for commercial television. So he schmoozes himself into their trust and buys them out for the phenomenal sum of $5,000 each.
Naturally, when the day finally comes to do the show out of a high-tech studio instead of Wayne's basement, it's been sanitized into unrecognizability, forcing Wayne to take a stand.
Secondary plotting involves Wayne's pursuit of a rock singer (Tia Carrere, who is quite appealing), Lowe's pursuit of her as well, Garth's love from afar for a waitress (Donna Dixon), the sleazeball sponsor (Brian Doyle-Murray) and his ditzy wife (Colleen Camp), Wayne's klutzy ex-girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle, from TV's "Twin Peaks," who is awful) and a number of unbilled cameos (Ed O'Neill of "Married . . . With Children," Alice Cooper, etc.).
There are some funny bits here and Myers and Carvey are quite good together, but the script (concocted by Myers and fellow "Saturday Night Live" writers Bonnie and Terry Turner) offers too many lame gags that fall flat. In fact, even the better ideas too often are unrealized, as when their TV program is altered to more closely resemble network programming. The resulting gags seem half-hearted.
Worse, even when jokes do play well, the target audience often doesn't get them. At least that's what happened at the screening I attended. These kids just aren't old enough to know "Laverne and Shirley" or "Sergeant York." Even a "Terminator 2" bit flew past most of the audience, which failed to recognize Robert Patrick, the actor who portrayed the evil terminator in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."
Director Penelope Spheeris, best known for two documentaries on L.A.'s punk-rock scene, was probably not the best choice to direct "Wayne's World," which cries out for someone with the sensibility of the Zucker Brothers ("Airplane!" the "Naked Gun" movies) to guide it. And someone who can make Myers' condescending, chauvinistic character maintain his charm for 95 minutes.
No doubt the kids who love this stuff want Wayne to be as smart-alecky as possible, not realizing he's smirking at them as much as the "establishment." And probably none of this will matter to fans of "Saturday Night Live," or the "Wayne's World" skits in particular.
In fact, the biggest laughs seemed to come from the most sophomoric moments � Myers parading around in his underwear and mugging wildly, for example.
I guess you had to be there.
Not!!!
One of the most standard architectures for a comedy team is the straight and the wacky. The straight person will generally seem either just very normal or perhaps romantic. The wacky person is, well, wacky. Examples are Crosby and Hope, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Rowan and Martin, and even Bergen and McCarthy. Generally the wacky person gets most of the laughs and the straight person gets top billing just for setting up the wacky person's jokes. There is more potential when you have two or more comics playing off each other as you did with the Marx Brothers or what is to my mind the best of the teams, Laurel and Hardy. So Mike Myers and Dana Carvey--playing their SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE alter egos Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar--start with a plus. Both are comics. There is potential for some really good humor. Unfortunately, they rarely play off each other for laughs. Either each does his own thing or they just both do the same thing. Wayne's main thing is to make a joke or do something clever and then flash a big open-mouthed grin as if he were standing in front of a cheering audience. He also negates sentences by adding a belated " ... not." Garth's thing is to act a little befuddled and stupid. Not the most auspicious starting material, but with enough personality the team could have potential. Where they go wrong is that they are just not all that winning, and most of their gags are familiar and not funny.
Wayne and Garth have a public access television show on cable television. The show is done on almost no budget from the basement of the house where Wayne lives with his parents. The idea is that in spite of the low budget of the cable production, they are supposed to be the best thing on television. Sadly, their cable hijinx are not all that funny and leave one wondering what the attraction is to their cable program. (SPOILER ALERT: They sell out to commercialism but realize that commercialism is not what they really want. George Romero did the same basic plot considerably better in KNIGHTRIDERS.)
Besides the two main characters, the film features Tia Carrere as Wayne's singer girlfriend from Hong Kong. Her singing, like Wayne's program, is just never as good as the script calls for it to be. Rob Lowe is a sleazy, slimy television promoter who is more style than substance. One of the better bit parts is Ed O'Neill as the doughnut shop owner with a darker side.
As in an AIRPLANE! film, about a quarter of the jokes but, but unlike in an AIRPLANE! film, the jokes do not come nearly fast enough. At times the film drags. That is particularly bad since the plot is predictable and if you know what is going to happen, you wish it would get it over with. Nearly every funny joke in the film is an allusion to or lampooning the entertainment industry. Most are meta-jokes that poke fun at product placements or actors talking to the camera. There are several film and television allusions. They give the film some chuckles but still too few laughs. WAYNE'S WORLD is often on the edge of being funny, but rarely crosses that line. Even at 95 minutes the film is often too slow and just not rewarding enough.
Sometimes, no matter how much you love analyzing and breaking down movies, you have to understand that some are just made for fun. Wayne�s World is a prime example. Sure, you can predict everything that�s going to happen, but the characters are entertaining and it�s a fairly decent mix of physical and verbal comedy. Of course, who can forget the variety of endings they invented and the moments of dialogue that still pop up today, such as, �Shaw... and monkeys might fly out of my butt!�
The most memorable television I watched in my teens consisted primarily of those �not ready for prime time players� at Saturday Night Live. They had cutting edge music and hosts who could act. Not to mention they had talented writers, including Michael Myers and Dana Carvey. Carvey had the Church Lady and Myers had Dieter and Simon. And when they worked together to produce the Wayne�s World sketch, I never thought I�d love a pair of na�ve losers more.
This sketch, surprising, turned into a successful feature film. After all, adults who don�t want to grow up can only be interesting and fun for a certain amount of time... say five minutes. But a full 90? Carvey had participated in a few failed attempts (not really his fault, poorly written material) like Opportunity Knocks and Myers was pretty much getting his start with this film. The last time Lorne Michaels had produced a successful film based off an SNL sketch was with The Blues Brothers, 12 years previously.
To top it off, Wayne�s World was directed by Penelope Spheeris, who was infamous by that point for her classic observation of punk rock artists in Decline of Western Civilization (over ten years previously to the making of this film). Asking a director to switch from this documentary style to a comedy about two innocents in the Midwest with a cable access show was quite a leap of faith.
Despite these reasons for reservations, Wayne�s World was far from disappointing. Is it an important movie to see? Heck no, but if you want something to watch on a rainy afternoon that will lighten your mood, this should do the trick. It�s unclear how much creative input Spheeris had in the final product as the two stars of the film had also created the characters, but there are signs that this was an enjoyable team effort. For instance, the conversations that Wayne and Garth have directly with the camera are actually engaging. This device is normally annoying, but Spheeris has done this before and has an eye for concentrating on subjects one by one.
Films about small-timers who suddenly make their dent in society and receive instant fortune only to realize they rather appreciate their simple lives are a dime a dozen in Hollywood. The trick with Wayne�s World that seems to cross age and gender in terms of enjoyment is that the characters are endearing. They lead humdrum lives, but they enjoy them enough that it�s interesting to watch them from one scene to the next.
Wayne (Myers) is the leader of the pair. He makes all the decisions about where the show goes, drives the car when they hang out, and gets the best wise cracks. The show is also named after him. He�s not the most attractive or intelligent of men, but he is charismatic and knows how to enjoy himself.
Garth (Carvey), his sidekick and best pal, keeps his mouth shut most of the time while he fantasizes about �Dream Girl� (Donna Dixon) in the donut shop. He allows himself to be led around by Wayne, including during their show, but he does get to reach his own shining moment when left to go his own way as success has spoiled and separated them, courtesy of smarmy television producer Benjamin (Rob Lowe).
Spheeris may not be the best female director Hollywood has to offer. It seems that she will do films like Wayne�s World for the sheer value of a paycheck so she can concentrate on other observational material when she has saved her pennies. And I don�t begrudge her this possible tendency. I'd probably do it myself if I were in her shoes.
It�s difficult to tell which well-known institution has withstood more humiliating failures, the Chicago Cubs or the gang over at SNL movies. The past few decades have seen more than a dozen truly wretched movies released under the auspices of being �based on Saturday Night Live skits�. And with very few exceptions� they have stunk like old cheese. But thanks to the somewhat dependable laws of probability, there have been at least a small handful of SNL films that made the leap successfully.
Actually, there have been two: The Blues Brothers and Wayne�s World.
Produced for under $20 million bucks and an earner of over $120 million, Wayne�s World is the movie that put Mike Myers on the map. His previous work on Saturday Night Live was invariably good stuff, but he made a huge impression among comedy fans in this, his first movie. Based on a low-concept low-IQ sketch about two sweet-natured metal heads in Aurora, Illinois, Wayne�s World turned out to be much better (and much funnier) than anyone could have anticipated� except Myers, of course.
The story introduces us to the amiable Wayne (Myers) and his meek buddy Garth (Dana Carvey, guilty of more mugging than the entire population of Central Park), as well as an eclectic series of increasingly bizarre characters (my personal favourite is Ed O�Neill as a surly donut vendor). Wayne and Garth host their own local public access cable television show, and their work catches the eye of the slimy Benjamin Oliver (Rob Lowe, showing a strong sense of humour) who plans to snatch up their show for a song. Complicating matters is Wayne�s recent obsession with sexy rocker Cassandra (Tia Carrere, a lovely gal who also seems to know her way around a punch line) and Ben�s underhanded attempts at exploiting her talents, among other things.
But plot�s not what matters in Wayne�s World � jokes are. Producer Lorne Michaels chose the right director in Penelope Spheeris, as she�s a filmmaker who knows her way around the rock music scene. She wisely knows when to step back, and let Myers and Carvey just riff off one another. Several of the best gags seem improvised, and Myers (along with Terry and Bonnie Turner) is a smart enough screenwriter to share the gags with everyone onscreen. Wayne�s World is a light-hearted and silly (yet irrepressibly entertaining) movie. It�s the rarest of �dumb comedies� � one that mixes heart and class in with the wall-to-wall silliness.
Maybe you have to be hip to the "Wayne's World" skit on TV's "Saturday Night Live." Maybe you have to be puerile, young-hearted and susceptible to jokes about -- there's no other way to put this -- sphincters. Well, "Wayne's World"-the-movie is a Roto-Rooter for clogged humor. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll drive home. As Wayne or Garth would say, it's schweeeet.
For the uninitiated, the regular "Wayne's World" sketch is about two longhaired, suburban, rockin' teenagers, Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey), who cohost a public-access cable show in Aurora, Ill., called . . . you know.
The cable show is about anything that occurs to their spacey brains. They might profile the Top 10 "babes" of the year, or even discuss the news. They're adolescents spinning around in the media-barraged white-youth culture, their entire references based on syndicated TV shows of the 1970s, heavy-metal bands and TV commercials.
Not unlike the similar (and less funny) characters Bill & Ted, they have invented their own dude's phrases, expressions and trademark facial contortions. The widest known Wayne 'n' Garthism is their use of "not." As in: " 'Wayne's World' is a truly excellent movie that pursues the deepest impulses of man in a dehumanized world. [Pause.] Not!!!!"
In the movie, Wayne and pal Garth have become quite famous in their neighborhood thanks to the cable show. Along comes exploitative Ben Oliver (Rob Lowe), who signs them into contract bondage with a sleazy operator (Brian Doyle-Murray) who owns the largest video arcade chain in Chicago.
Myers, who created the original characters, has to make a feature film out of a teeny sketch. With cowriters Bonnie and Terry Turner, he fares better than you'd expect. But there are stretch marks -- not to mention guest stars, including Alice Cooper, Meat Loaf, Lara Flynn Boyle and Donna Dixon. The finale, an attempt to lampoon movie endings, is a despair-driven inability to end the movie.
Myers has also let success prematurely go to his head. The romance between his character and lissome rock singer Cassandra (Tia Carrere) would never happen in a million years. In Wayne's dreams maybe.
There are plenty of Wayne-Garth moments to enjoy, however. Whenever Wayne sees Cassandra perform, he goes into a swoony reverie, with Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver" playing over the soundtrack. We're talking one of the most cringe-inducing AM songs of the 1970s. If Cassandra were president, opines Garth, "she'd be BABE-raham Lincoln."
Carvey's Garth is the best thing about this movie. A shy, cross-eyed lad with black spectacles and an enormous mane of hair, his body moves in a tentative, jerky way. When, in a fantasy scene, he picks up the woman of his dreams, he lip-syncs to a raunchy Jimi Hendrix tune ("Foxy Lady"), gyrating toward her with involuntary pelvic thrusts. It's worth the price of admission.
I'm a huge fan of Mike Myers. I really get his humor, and since he writes most of his material, I like his movies a whole lot. I mean, there are many movies that will make you laugh often and you'll be like, hey, I had a good time. But movies like "Wayne's World" make me laugh so much than I lose all objectivity. It's based on Myers' "Wayne's World" skits on Saturday Night Live, but he had the good sense of not just stretching the formula but turning it into a real movie. Wayne Campbell (Myers) and his best friend Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) are developed into more than just caricatures, and we see them interacting with the world outside the basement of Wayne's parents, where they host their own local access show, in which they basically just goof around. So we learn that there's life beyond the show. Wayne and Garth love to hang at the Stan Mikita coffee shop, party on at rock concerts or just drive around Aurora in the GarthMobile. It's not a very ambitious life, but they're having a good time.
Things get more complicated when Wayne meets Cassandra (Tia Carrere), the babelicious singer of a kick ass hard rock band and when, not long after, yuppie TV producer Benjamin (Rob Lowe) buy their show to put it on a network. But these originally good news bring them a whole new set of problems, as Benjamin tries to screw them over, force them to sell out and to woo Cassandra. And through all this, Garth and Wayne might even lose their beautiful friendship! Dude! Okay, I summarized the plot pretty straightforward, but it's much goofier in the movie. Myers' screenplay is filled with ridiculous situations, amusing details, throwaway references, inside jokes and original, hilarious dialogue. Penelope Spheeris might not be Scorsese, but she's a good enough director who keeps the film fast and well crafted. The film also has an awesome soundtrack (featuring Queen, Alice Cooper, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others) and most importantly, it's constantly laugh out loud funny.
That's due not only to the witty writing but also to the great performances. Mike Myers has perfect comic timing, and he creates in Wayne a very colorful character who's always absolutely hilarious. I love his look, the way he talks, the way he moves, and how he comments the action directly to the camera. He achieved to create an even cooler character in Austin Powers, but Wayne is still a lot of fun. Dana Carvey is also very amusing as oddball Garth, who's geeky yet mysterious, even potentially threatening. Rob Lowe is good at making Benjamin into a totally loathable butt kisser, and Tia Carrere is both sexy and a fine actress. "Wayne's World" is one of my favorite comedies ever. It's one of those films that I don't get tired of watching. I must have seen it a dozen times and I still find every single joke hilarious. You start watching it and before you know it, you just spent 95 minutes laughing. Because this movie is stupid, but in a smart way: it's supposed to be stupid! Party on!