Une nuit folle, folle

Graduate student Leon (Alan Solomon) sends out invitations to five other students to participate in a night long scavenger hunt called The Great All Nighter. At first the five scoff at the idea and refuse, but through either gestating rivalries, bravado, or pressure all change their minds and embark on a energized and chaotic rush through Los Angeles.

Midnight Madness was the 2nd movie from Walt Disney Pictures to carry the PG rating (the first being the previous years The Black Hole). Midnight Madness unfortunately was not a success during it's initial release either commercially or critically, and even was branded a "Dog of the Week" on Siskel & Ebert's Sneak Previews. But despite this the movie has attained a small but devoted cult following thanks in no small part to airings on cable television, and I'm pleased to say the following is well deserved.

The movies strength is in its simplicity. The movie follows five teams who are all varying degrees of broad stereotypes which helps to set the tone from the onset. The teams include the nice guy Yellow Team led by David Naughton, the Blue Team consisting of jerks and snobs led by Steven Furst, the Red Team of a unpopular sorority lead by future Simpsons voice actress Maggie Roswell, the White Team of nerds lead by Eddie Deezen, and the Green Team consisting of a group of muscle headed jocks who call themselves "Meat Machine". Once the movie gets going with the Great All Nighter, it throws everything but the kitchen sink at the teams and puts them in shenanigans of varying degrees of outlandishness and uses Los Angeles city setting quit,e effectively. The Griffith Observatory, Pabst Brewing Company, LAX, and Hollywood Walk of Fame are used for some memorable scenes and are a lot fun. Even Leon, whose sole purpose is to oversee the game, gets some great moments as he buts heads with his landlady while his neighbors who are initially annoyed eventually become enthralled in watching the game (much to his landlady's ire).

Midnight Madness isn't a great comedy, but it is a good comedy. Playing like a softer edged version of Up the Creek or Animal House, the movie has the same level of zany energy as other Animal House inspired movies but doesn't have the raunch. For what the movie is, I recommend it.

It doesn't quite deserve the disproportionate number of "10" votes it's received on this web site, but "Midnight Madness" is still a lot of fun. The eccentric Leon (Alan Solomon) organizes a cross-city scavenger hunt for five groups of college students ranging from nerds and jocks to babes and good guys. Each team must decipher a series of clues ("Mr. Carson's obese male child" leads to Johnny's Fat Boy Restaurant, and so on) before racing to the next location to do it again, all the while battling some occasional dirty tricks from rivals. The actual laughs few and far between, but you can't deny "Midnight Madness" carries heaps of cheesy '80s appeal. Look for Michael J. Fox (billed without the middle initial) in his film debut.

I saw this movie a few days ago for the third time. Boy that movie is such a riot! Leon sure knew how to make a great game with his two girls Candy and Sunshine. I loved it when his apartment kept filling up with nosey tenates who keep complaing about the noise and they wind up joining the fun listening to the results of the game. The teams were pretty cool even though they were stereo types. I now use that new word all the time that Barf made up "faga beefe" to aggravate my brothers. This movie has no sex or terrible violence Very few swear words are heard. Plus they great gags that were new in the 80's thats still funny today. I have a lot of comments to say about this film. I just love the two twins Peggy and Lulu,when they were dancing, eating a man out of business, stealing a man's tow truck and giggling all through out the movie made me laugh and cry. The white team Aka the Nerds were very histarical when they got into a food fight and dressed as bellhops. The Green Team aka the Meat Machine were funny too when they destroyed the arcade and had a run in with the Paps Beery. The Blue team was the best in the movie since they were the crooked team. The yellow team turned out to be the most boring team and also caused most of the cheesy scenes to happen. I'm not going to tell you who wins though, thats the secret of the movie which is sort of expecting. Still over all if you want to make milk come out of your nose buy this film before its too late. I give it nine out of ten stars because of the cheesy parts and the end was too expecting.

I watched this film for the first time not too long ago. What I found was a nostalgia trip to the early eighties with the extremely "happy" disco laden theme song and the 2 roller skating beauties with nice "smiles" in the opening credits. There was an innocence and sense of fun to this movie that is lacking in today's movies. The film doesn't try to be too clever for it's own good or cynical which I actually found to be refreshing.

The plot centers around a scavenger hunt around L.A. set up by a future Bill Gates type named Leon who is adorned by his lovely assistants. The invitees for this challenge are 5 color coded groups representing every campus comedy stereotype (Jocks, Nerds, Alienated girls, the protagonists and the villains). They find themselves at Griffith Observatory, a Video arcade and the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery among other places hunting down clues to get them to the next location and ultimately the big prize that awaits them at the end. The film loses its campy momentum when it addresses the big brother-little brother issue between David Naughton and Michael J. Fox, these actors play extremely bland characters compared to the madcap supporting cast.

I found myself smiling and even chuckling in parts although the film was predictable, contrived not to mention, dated but upbeat and entertaining all the same.

It's good to be entertained and not have your brain taxed every now and again in this day and age of cynicism and self-referential smugness which runs in abundance in today's cinema.

This is the perfect antidote to the dark malaise seen in too many films now.

I always used to say that Weird Science was my favorite movie until I found this movie. I grew up in the 80's but had not seen this movie since we didn't have HBO or cable TV back then. By the time the late 80's hit we (my brother and my friend down the street) were all watching horror movies at sleepovers so I missed seeing this somehow. Fast forward to the days of the Internet and I found this movie for free on YouTube but broken into parts and I was delighted to find the perfect movie. There's no cuss words or bloody violence, no nudity or sex, and no drug use. (except for when Blaylak jumps into the vat of beer at the Pabst Brewery, but I give it a pass). This movie transports me back in time to a time when I was still watched over by my parents and older brother and sister only being 4 years old in 1980. This was a time when if you went out to eat at a restaurant it was with your whole family. There was no one speaking about reptilians back then, however Land of the Lost had come out, so people did know about Sleestaks. I love the whole progression of the scavenger hunt, and especially at the beginning when they're looking up at the stars, knowing that the sky wasn't polluted with as many satellites as there are today. I still like to go outside and look at the stars and pretend that I'm under the protection of this movie. You know when people check up on you and ask if you've been keeping it PG? I think this would have been the movie that they had in mind, as this movie can't really be faulted for too much, no matter how bad the Siskel & Ebert review is of this movie. Midnight Madness truly is good clean family fun in an old school way. I need the same protections today that I would have had back then when the movie came out, being watched over, cared for and loved.