Valley Girl

Casting: horrible. Starting with the 30 year old high schoolers casting!!! I didn't buy the chemistry between randy and Julie for one second. Sad. Liked the Alicia Silverstone tie in. That's it. This was a truly poor movie.

As a fan of the original I went in to this with an open mind and I was really excited to see this in a musical format. Great music, fun clothes, 80s, should be a no brainer right?

Wrong! The idea itself is cute and fun and there are some cool dance scenes but the dialogue between the two leads is just terrible. There is no chemistry and the dude who plays Randy is just dull. I love Mae Whitman but she's just wasted here as Randy's BFF. I mean I'm not expecting Oscar performances but even high school musical or descendants has characters that are more interesting. It just kind of feels all over the place and doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. It bums me out bc this could have been really fun but it's lacking the heart that makes the orignal so great.

Put simply, this movie is just bad. None of the actors can carry a tune, all the outfits felt cheap, and the girls were not valley girls. This movie in no way needed to be a musical! The middle part was actually okay, they stopped singing and tried to develop the characters and plot; but the beginning and end were just so terrible!! I can't even describe how awful. But, three of the four original valley girls made cameos and I love them for that.

I have to start by saying that the original is still one of my all-time favorite films. I was 16 and growing up in Pasadena, California when it was released. I began my 35-year career as a DJ a few months before that. Later, I was an intern at KROQ in 1987 and lived and worked in the San Fernando Valley in my early adulthood. I still have my original VHS copy of it, as well as a DVD, and a vinyl copy of the original soundtrack.

The review of this film by moderniste is spot-on and perfectly correct. This version can't hold a candle to the original in terms of actual Los Angeles early 80s New Wave/Post-Punk culture. The filmmakers tried too hard to reference 80s pop culture and like, totally lost the substance of it, dude, fer sure. Then again, making it into a musical, and a Disney-esque one at that, was clearly poor judgement.

I gave it 5 stars because I like a lot of the music that was used and I'm being forgiving of all of the allowances that the writer(s) thought had to be made for post-Generation X audiences. Making the party that Randy and Julie took off from into a costume party where everyone was dressed as a pop culture icon was an interesting twist, although they obviously felt they had to explain each costume (though to be honest, I would have missed the Dukes of Hazzard reference).

Having KROQ host a prom is something that wouldn't have happened. I was the DJ at many Southland proms in that time period that had Roq Joq come for a couple of hours, but I don't remember Raechel Donahue ever doing an appearance, and Rodney Bingenheimer definitely would not have. It would likely have been Richard Blade, "Swedish" Egil Aalvik, Jim "Poor Man" Trenton, Jed "the Fish" Gould, or possibly Freddy Snakeskin.

Having said all of that, homages rarely stand up to the original, but kudos to the film's producers for paying tribute to a totally trippendicular cult classic, albeit in a 2020 way. As I mentioned, the idea of making it a musical was a misfire, but to fair, if they had tried to re-make the original, it almost certainly would've also fallen flat, especially if they didn't consult with people who were there in those days. It would be pretty much impossible to duplicate the perfection of Deborah Foreman and Nicholas Cage in the original anyway.

Made by people looking for a quick buck, this pale version of an entertaining 80's flick has some cute moments but it all falls flat without any substance. Like so many things Hollywood, the people behind this are wannabe's thinking all it takes to make a film is hard work and investment capital. The original, also with faults, had charm and a breakout performance from Nicholas Cage to distinguish it. This one has little of anything to add to the original but imitation.