JOYSTICKS (1983) *
Man, I got this movie from Netflix because it sounded like it would be great. It’s basically Porky’s at a video game arcade. Unfortunately, the key phrase here is SOUNDED. Joysticks just flat out sucks. I used to hang out obsessively in arcades during the 80’s and the intense nostalgia I have for that bygone era was the only thing that kept me watching this turd.
The whole premise has a grumpy parent (Joe Don Baker) trying to close down a small town video game arcade because he thinks it’s a dive. He hires an obnoxious looking punk rocker named King Vidiot (Jonathan Gries, Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite) to sabotage the place and when that doesn’t work, Vidiot challenges the owner to a video game showdown for control of the business. Meanwhile, a lot of girls show off their boobs, nerds hump horny MILFs, and a hotdog gets lost in between a girl’s tits.
Again, SOUNDS great doesn’t it? The problem is none of this is even remotely funny. I don’t think director Greydon (Without Warning) Clark knew ANYTHING about how a comedy works. There are no set-ups and no payoffs to any of the so-called gags and there isn’t a single laugh to be had throughout the entire film. I did like the camera wipes where Pac-Man himself would gobble up the scene though. And the boobies. They were cool.
Clark and Baker teamed up again the next year for the slightly less worse Final Justice.