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Strangely and by coincidence, my second Pam Grier movie in a week was last night's "Class of 1999" (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0099277)  (hey Nathan, how about a Pam Grier Binge?)

OK, anyway, this movie was not nearly as ambitous as "Ghosts Of Mars", but it was a lot of fun.

The story is that that sometime in the near future..um..past...um...heck, it sucks when 'future' movies have dates and you're watching them after the date has come and gone....  I think a lot of budget 'sci-fi' movies use a similar approach to keep production costs down.  Set your movie in the near future and you don't need a lot of production for futuristic stuff.  Heck, work some time travel into your story and you can set your movie as far in the future as you want and still do all your shooting just outside of town with almost *no* production (Yeah, "Time Shifters" and "Time Runner", I had you in mind!)

Anyway..in 1999, schools have become armed batte-grounds (ok...maybe not so unrealisitic in retrospect) Gangs pretty much control the schools, despite metal detectors and armed guards (hmm..this is fiction, right?)  To try to get control of this situation, one school principle contracts with a cybernetics corporation to develop and deploy androids that can keep discipline in the classrooms.  Said president is Macolm McDowell and the president of the cyber-corp is Stacey Keach.  Not sure what the two are doing slumming in this picture..well..McDowell has a pretty varied career.

However, our hero for the film is Cody, just released from prison back into school and trying to go straight, and his love interest is Christie, the principal's daughter.  They and much if the cast seeem to be played by actors with a lot of b-movie background, but I didn't recognize them.  (Pam Griier played one of the three androids)

Things start going wrong.  At first the intimidation of the new android teacher's is about on the level of Tom Berenger in "The Substitue", but things start getting out of hand when the androids start getting a little more violent then the crime warrents, including killing two students.  Seems the androids are ex-battle androids with some modifications.  McDowell is concerned and Keach is reassurring, but Cody knows there's a cover up and sets out to expose it.    Keach sets it up to get Cory's gang to fight with a rival gang (and have the androids sneak in behind to kill off both gangs...) but enough survive.  Cody figures out what's up and works a truce with the rival gang learder to go after the androids, who have kidnapped Christie.  The finale is a fight through the school to rescue Christie and destroy the androids.

Some random thoughts about the movie:
It's obviously a semi-low-budget movie in a not-quite-post-apoc urban style.  It works pretty well.
Keach was wearing funky contacts the whole time and I kept expecting a twist were it turns out he's an android, too.  Never happens so I wonder why he wore the contacts?
McDowell is usually a good thing to see ina  movie, but playing a good guy here was not his strength, there's not enough in the part for him to work with.

The movie was paced well, without much slow down.  The premise has you laughing "Andoird teachers in a school run by gangs" so it's pretty much a nonsense idea but if you can set your expectations at that level, it can be entertaining.



Post Edited (05-15-03 17:33)

Imagine if they made a movie starring:

PAM GRIER
ROSEY GRIER
WILL GEER
RICHARD GERE
and
GREER GARSON

Imdb says "The Faculty"was a remake of this movie.Is that right?

i do't see where IMDB says it is a remake of 1999.

Are you talking about a different faculty than this one:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0133751

Ya know what?! I've seen that movie and I don't remember it but I watched it so it can't be too horrible. But what I DO remember is that Pam Grier has one REALLLY NICE boob and one weird one and I'm not talking about their personalities either!

love colleen

But what I DO remember is that Pam Grier has one REALLLY NICE boob and one weird one

I don't recall them being apparent in this movie...

Would you believe....that this was Mark Lester's sequel to Class of 1984?  Well, it was.  I also saw it on the movie screen, this being released in the last gasp of the indie exploitationers getting theatrical play.  Entertaining, you have to love the line "Let's go kill some teachers."  Doubt you'd see it said in quite the same way in these post school war zone days.

As far as I can tell, Keach's character was supposed to an albino.  Why?  Cause they're creepy looking, I guess (for those that are albino or related to them, I apologize, but I'm talking movie thought here) and make for excellent bad guys.

Good bad movie, it is.

Would you believe....that this was Mark Lester's sequel to Class of 1984?

Funny thing about tat.  I have not seen Class of 1984, but I was joking with my wife, who does not share my taste in movies, last night and I said "Want to watch a movie with me?  It's got armed student gangs controlling a school" or something like that and she said "It's not 1994, is it?"  She got the title wrong but from her brief description and some IMDB searching, I figured out she meant "Class of 1984", which she had seen

Doubt you'd see it said in quite the same way in these post school war zone days.

Ahh...nope!

As far as I can tell, Keach's character was supposed to an albino.

With white hair, freaky eyes...and a black moustache?

make for excellent bad guys.

Gary Busey in "Lethal Weapon" comes to mind.

Fearless Freep wrote:

> As far as I can tell, Keach's character was supposed to an
> albino.
>
> With white hair, freaky eyes...and a black moustache?
>
>

Forgot about that, perhaps he drank too much coffee?  Seriously...my take was that they wrote him as an android and, at the last minute, for whatever reason, choose to have him be human instead.  I thought he was an android for most of the movie as well.  I remember being surprise by the blood.

I did love John Ryan's history teacher android.  He was so enthusiastic about giving out homework!

I thought he was an android for most of the movie as well. I remember being surprise by the blood.

Me, too.  I kept expecting "ok, here comes the twist..." and it never happened.  Then when he was killed I was like "OK, so what's with the eyes!?!?"

I did love John Ryan's history teacher android. He was so enthusiastic about giving out homework!

Yeah.  Forgot to mention though, unless the androids were some sort of undercover infiltrators, the only one of those three I could buy as a battle-'droid was the gym teacher

Oh, this one is quite funny. I remember I watched it as a "Escape from NY"rip-off, because the first minutes are quite similar. Looks like Mark Lester is quite fond of this particular JC movie, and there are many "homages" to it in other of his movies (Remember how Arnie uses his wristwatch in "Commando" to know how much time he has to solve everything?). Maybe JC was playing along with him when he hired both Pam Grier and Stacy Keach for "Escape from L.A.".

I think there's even another sequel (By Lester or Albert Pyun this time? Can't remember ) starring Sasha Mitchell, but it is a bit boring unless you are into the cyborg thing.

Neville wrote:

> I think there's even another sequel (By Lester or Albert Pyun
> this time? Can't remember ) starring Sasha Mitchell, but it is
> a bit boring unless you are into the cyborg thing.
>

It had the odd title The Class of 1999 Part 2, which was confusing since the previous Class of 1999 was, in fact, Class of 1984 Part 2.  Kind of add Hollywood math there, slightly more confusing than the numbering on the Rambo movies.