Class of 1999 (1990)

Please don't spend money on this.

Fresh and Exciting

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Commando" director Mark L. Lester's intriguing but schlocky melodrama "Class of 1999" looks like a cross-between of "Escape from New York" and "Blackboard Jungle." The theme of this low-budget but well-made juvenile delinquent thriller is violence in high schools. White-haired Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach of "Doc") supervises three androids masquerading secretly as teachers to control students—mostly narcotics addicts--at a gang-riddled high school run by Dr. Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell of "A Clockwork Orange") who is reacts with surprise to this revelation. One of the androids pulls the mask that serves as his face up and flashes his robotic chassis for Langford. Nobody but natty Dr. Miles (McDowell) knows that the teachers are androids. Stacy Keach is in rare form, while McDowell is cool, calm, and civilized. The kids are wear different gang land colors and outfits. The nominal protagonist is Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg of "Fire in the Sky") who just finished a stretch in real prison and is returning to Seattle's Kennedy High School. He is warned before he leaves prison that he had better stay away from his old gang stomping grounds. Meanwhile, Cody makes friends with Dr. Miles' daughter, Christie Langford (Traci Lind of "Bugsy") and rescues her from rapist on school property. Cody sends the kid to the hospital and then suffers the wrath of one of the three teachers, Mr. Bryles (Patrick Kilpatrick of "The Zombinator"), who later subjects him to real torture in the gym. Problems erupt for everybody when the androids go berserk. Lester has a good cast, especially the three teachers: Patrick Kilpatrick, Pam Grier, and John P. Ryan. At one point, the threesome pursue Cody through the city in a car with our hero astraddle a motorcycle. Repeatedly, Mr. Bryles bumps Cody. Cody leads them on a dead-in road, and they plunge into the river. They slog out of the river looking like drowned rats and planning their next move. Not bad for a futuristic satire.

I've got a soft spot for sci-fi films that have already passed their sell-by-date—those movies set in a year that is now history to you and I (even more-so if the year forms part of the film's title, like this one): I just love seeing how these cinematic predictions of the future differ from reality.Class of 1999 is a classic example: according to this film, by the year 1999 gang culture will have reached such a level in the U.S. that certain areas—known as Free Fire Zones—will no longer be protected by the police. Kennedy High School, situated in one such lawless zone, becomes the testing ground for three experimental robot teachers (played by Patrick Kilpatrick, Pam Grier, and John P. Ryan), adapted from military battle droids by unscrupulous MegaTech head honcho Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach).Recently released from prison, gang-banger Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg) intends to give up his criminal lifestyle, but when the droid teachers begin to revert back to their military programming, dealing with their unruly students using extreme force, he and his gang, the Blackhearts, join forces with their rivals, the Razorheads, to try and stop the killing.According to director Mark L. Lester (who also directed the superior Class of 1984), late '90s fashion hasn't moved on much from the decade before, the film's youths sporting some truly nasty attire (worst offender being Joshua Jackson as Cody's brother Angel, who wears yellow leggings and matching tunic and has the cheek to tell Cody "Man, you got to think about your image"). Also exhibiting zero sign of taste: Stacy Keach as freaky albino Forrest, whose hairstyle is a cross between a mullet and a rattail, and who wears zombie contact lenses for no apparent reason (I thought he was an albino at first, but his 'tache is black).This version of 1999 also sees the art of robotics advanced to a level where machines can pass for human, something clearly inspired by James Cameron's The Terminator. As the droid teachers battle Cody and his pals, they shed their skin to reveal powerful weapons, which takes the violence up a notch and allows for some pretty impressive animatronic effects and gloopy cyborg gore, Grier opening up her chest (complete with prosthetic tits), Ryan having his cranium blown off, and Kilpatrick's head reduced to half human, half robot (before having his noggin separated from his body via forklift truck!).Gloriously daft, a little cheesy at times, a lot cheesy at others, and packed with cartoonish violence, Class of 1999 is great entertainment for fans of exploitative '80s schlock. The fact that its vision of the near future is so wrong is just the icing on the cake.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Mark L. Lesters' belated follow-up to his big cult hit "Class of 1984" is about as glorious as this sort of thing gets, introducing science fiction into the formula of youth gangs out of control. It takes place in the "future" year of 1999, when sections of major U.S. cities are simply given over to gangs, sections which the police don't enter. These sections are called "free fire zones". In the middle of one such hellhole, a high school named Kennedy meets its three new teachers, in reality cyborgs which won't tolerate any misbehaviour. It doesn't take too long for the cyborgs to revert to their original military programming and see *all* the students as nuisances or threats. So two gangs are forced to team up with each other to wage war on the teachers. You know you're in for a good time with those opening credits / exposition, and "Class of 1999" delivers so well in the cheese and camp departments that any message it's espousing ultimately has to take a backseat. In terms of production design, atmosphere, and score, this is a triumph of a B picture, one in which there's urban decay almost everywhere you look. C. Courtney Joyners' screenplay includes some gems of dialogue, and it's to the actors' credit that they can recite these lines with a straight face. Bradley Gregg ("Stand By Me", "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors") stars as supposedly reformed gang member Cody Culp, who's trying to go straight. Lovely Traci Lin is his leading lady, a serious student who happens to be the daughter of the principal, played by Malcolm McDowell. Other familiar faces include Jill Gatsby ("Maniac Cop"), Darren E. Burrows ('Northern Exposure'), Joshua John Miller ("Near Dark"), Sean Sullivan ("Wayne's World"), and Lee Arenberg (the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series), but the show is stolen by Patrick Kilpatrick, Pam Grier, and the hilarious John P. Ryan as the teachers, and Stacy Keach as the nut job "controlling" the cyborgs. Ryan even smokes a pipe, and has one memorable scene where he proceeds to spank two troublemakers on the ass. How can you NOT be amused at a movie with this kind of a scene? This warped sense of humour is just part of a package that also features enjoyable visual and makeup effects, a cracking pace, a healthy dose of violence, and some good action sequences. From beginning to end, this is full of entertainment value, right down to the cool soundtrack featuring an early Nine Inch Nails tune. All in all, this deserves its own cult status just as much as its predecessor, getting itself a sequel ("Class of 1999 II: The Substitute") four years later. A total hoot. Eight out of 10.

It was a dreadful Sunday evening. I was in a really bad mood; recovering from a horrible case of weekend hangover with a heavily upset stomach and struggling with a lack of sleep. I put my borrowed copy of "Class of 1999" in the VCR, but was pretty much convinced already there wasn't any movie that would succeed in holding my attention at that point. I was wrong. "Class of 1999" literally re-charged my batteries and managed to make me end my weekend with a huge sardonic grin on my face. Moral of this seemingly irrelevant and pointless personal story: we could ALL use a completely senseless and over-the-top grotesque movie about homicidal robot teachers from time to time! This movie, in spite of being an assembly of recycled ideas and qualifying as utterly dumb, is so much fun and offers such a giant amount of cheesy gore effects that I can't possibly imagine anyone hating it. The premise can't be taken too seriously and there are plentiful of obvious tongue-in-cheek elements (like the deliberately absurd performances from a solid B-movie cast), so the way I figure is that you can't but sit back and enjoy this early 90's hodgepodge of Sci-Fi/horror. The film is listed as a sequel to "Class of 1984", but apart from the futuristic high-school setting and the fact they were both directed by Mark L. Lester, the two have very little in common. I even strongly suspect that the reminiscent "Class of …" title is only there for slick marketing purposes. The original 1982 cult-classic dealt with teachers standing up against the ever increasing power of youthful gangs, but in this film the youthful thugs have to fight for their lives against android teachers! The year's 1999 – duh – and the US pretty much looks like John Carpenter already imagined it in "Escape from NY", meaning certain areas are off-limits for the police and you enter at your own risk. Kennedy High is located in the middle of such an area and it's needless to say that education is the least of their concern. The Razorheads are busy fighting their gang war against the Blackhearts when suddenly three brand new teachers make their entry. We immediately know they are cyborgs, bought by principal Malcolm McDowell from a hi-tech company run by Stacy Keach, but obviously the students don't. Minor little problem is that the robots were initially designed to military purposes, so they tend to confuse discipline with cold-blooded murder. The thugs will have to put their territorial gang conflicts aside for a moment and combine forces against robots with super strength! And one of them is Blaxploitation heroine Pam Grier, so they're screwed! "Class of 1999" is a wondrously bonkers piece of exploitation trash with cartoon-like violence and numerous sequences that look oddly similar to legendary moments of other 80's classics, like "The Terminator" and "Robocop". The cyborg effects are sublime and the dialogs are delightfully banal, but especially the cast is the main reason why this flick has CULT written all over it! Stacy Keach is sublime as the exaggeratedly eccentric robot-father, complete with dyed white hair and goofy contact lenses. Apart from the aforementioned Malcolm McDowell ("A Clockwork Orange") and Pam Grier ("Coffy"), "Class of 1999" also stars familiar cult faces John P. Ryan ("It's Alive"), Patrick Kilpatrick ("Under Siege 2") and Joshua Miller ("River's Edge").