Pretty Cool

"Howard Duckell" (Will Burke) is an ordinary high school student who dreams of being irresistible to women. But on one particular day this becomes a problem when he wakes up late and realizes that he is about to miss his high school graduation. So, upon hurrying out of the house he literally runs into a pretty girl by the name of "Tiffany Granger" (Alexis Thorpe) and knocks her over. Apologizing profusely, he then barely makes it to his ceremony only to realize that his grades weren't quite good enough to graduate and in order to obtain his high school diploma he will have to attend summer school. Naturally, this conflicts with his plans to get to know Tiffany better so he decides to break into the high school principal's office to change his grades on the computer. However, upon doing so he accidentally hacks into a top secret Eastern European computer program which transfers psychic powers into his brain which gives him the power to read people's minds and control their every word and deed. Needless to say, he is initially delighted to have such abilities, but he begins to have second thoughts when things get totally out of control. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought this film had promise but quickly became a bit too crude and clichéd for my tastes. That is not to say, however, that there weren't some humorous moments here and there but overall, I didn't think it quite fulfilled its potential and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Pretty Cool is basically a homage to films like Weird Science and Zapped!, wrapped up in a parody of early Tom Cruise films, like Risky Business and Color of Money. It follows the adventures of a lovable loser who meets the girl of his dreams and then discovers he has to go to summer school and won't have time to try to get to know her. Deciding to break into the school's computer to change his grades (shades of WarGames there, another eighties classic), he inadvertently receives a transmission from a secret lab in Europe, giving him awesome mental powers.

Discovering he can read minds as well as control them, our hero has some juvenile fun at first, giving us some nice T&A. But his escapades threaten his relationship with his dream girl, and he's determined to win her without using his powers on her. Then there's the mysterious woman from the lab out to track down whoever has the power, her thought transference necklace, and a host of other complications. There's a lot going on in this movie, and while it doesn't all make sense necessarily, the movie isn't meant to be taken very seriously anyway.

Since the main character is basically a decent guy, most of the film's mischief comes from his unscrupulous best friend, who cackles maniacally at the prospect of all the fun to be had with the powers. He ends up in over his head a lot of the time, but it leads to some very funny situations. The film is basically a boy meets girl affair with some nice T&A and a good deal of slapstick humor. It's not the greatest story ever told by any stretch, but it's definitely better than average for the straight to video market. Worth a rental at the least.

This movie was great, alot better than its sequel but I love the idea and originality. Wish we had a third movie and other similar stories. Rolfe did a great job on this.

It's about time they made more movies like this. I don't know about you but I'm sick of horror movies with no nudity. Paris Hilton was doing a striptease while camping near a town run by a family of serial killers and there STILL wasn't any nudity! Bloody hell! There, got that off my chest. Now...

This movie is so similar to the old 80's teen sex comedies that you almost forget it wasn't made in the 80's until you see/hear a few modern references. They even used Sound FX from "Zapped".

The main character in this movie possesses the ability to both read minds and to control other people's minds. Anything from simply making them think about something to making them fart to forcing them to adopt a different personality.

OK, so this is a low-budget take-off of eighties teen sex comedies like Zapped and Weird Science. But if you can accept sometimes painfully hokey lines and antics, then there are nice comic bits in this movie along with some nice eye-candy girls. There are also many groan- inducing comic bits as well, which is I guess part of the package. It at least keeps moving, and has a variety of different types of mental powers gags, rather than dull repetition.

Amy Brassette is great though underutilized as Howard's nagging older sister, with occasional bits like an amazing run of impressions in a single take. Cecilia Bergqvist was hokey as the supposedly-plain-but-clearly-hot teacher, but she made up for it by being hilarious as a teenage boy in her body (particularly the hilarious shot in the bathroom). The others are mostly mediocre.

Incidentally, the DVD I got was loaded with stuff for such a low-budget production -- I'm not sure how they managed that.