Maxx Zimonick
I'm not sure where all these bad reviews are coming from. I haven't watched this movie in years but I remember it as a very funny movie that made good fun of the college football recruiting process. I was thinking about this movie the other day and decided to check out the rating for this movie and was shocked to see that it was hovering around 4.1. I must have seen an entirely different movie or there are a lot of people that don't see this movie the way I saw it. I loved Micheal Anthony Hall movies back in the day and this is one of my all time favorites. I really liked 16 candles as well as Noation Lampoons Vacation. Who can forget Weird Science. So there is no way this movie deserves a 4.1 review. 10 all the way for me. Really probably around a high 7 but since people are all butt hurt by this movie for some reason I'm giving it a 10.
vogeljf
This movie was made to be a comedy and not some kind of great documentary. If you didn't play quarterback in high school then you might not like this movie or understand it. Soundtrack was great and Paul Gleason as the coach is flat out the best high school football coach ever in a movie period! His pregame speech before the state championship game at the beginning of the movie is classic. It ranks just ahead of John Goodman in Revenge of the Nerds. Watch this classic over and over again and remember how unimportant high school football coaches really are in life! There are way worse movies out there than Johnny Be Good! This movie is not even close to being as cheesy as Varsity Blues, even though I quite enjoyed that movie as well. Obviously neither one of these movies are going to win an Oscar, but not all movies are made to win an Oscar. This movie is way better than Eyes Wide Shut and you could watch Johnny Be Good twice and go out to dinner before Eyes Wide Shut is over.
danluttrell2002
Not the best movie I've ever seen but a good coming of age comedy. Repeat comedy. Some people might not like this movie but I thought it was good. If you like movies in general and can deal or like the 1980's and early 1990's era movies you'll enjoy this.If you like the Breakfast Club or any of the Brat Pack era movies you'll like this. It also has some good football scenes but only a few short ones so those that hate football can manage through them.Basically this movie is about college recruiting of a star high school football quarterback. He struggles with the moral question of does he go to the flashy money schools or the one where he might get an education. In the mean time his family, coach and friends all fall victim to college recruiters.Not a good movie for young children due to sexual overtones, drinking, etc. Men and women should both enjoy this movie.My favorite scene is early in the movie with Johnny in his room playing the drums with the TV and stereo going. I could really relate to this scene from my high school years. I measure movies by the question of, would I be disappointed if I had paid $10 to see it at the movie theater. This one exceeds the grade. Enjoy.
Jordan_Haelend
Well, I did it. I had heard about how bad this movie was and I went down to the Borders Books & Music and bought it. After having turned it on and shut it off on at least 10 successive occasions, I finally made it to the end tonight. You see, every time I fired it up I thought, "The rest of it can't possibly be as awful as the part I just watched. They can't possibly insult the viewer's intelligence any more than they have." The filmmakers proved me wrong each time.The script was clunky, the photography is badly framed and poorly shot, and much of the film just doesn't make any sense. Also, there isn't a single sequence the conclusion of which you can't see coming from a mile away- come on, of COURSE Johhny's "side" was going to win the impromptu football game when he has one hand shackled behind his back- and his girl is the prize! And Johnny Walker strutting down the Main street of his staid, middle-American town dressed like he's on his way to a Gay bar on Cowboy Night?! How ELSE would his straight-laced family react than with shock, indignation and disgust? As to the actors, Uma is lovely, Downey is Downey (and I admit is pretty good in his standard hopped-up sidekick role, especially in the motel scenes,) but Hall seems completely uninterested in what he's doing. He really acts as if he didn't really want to do this film, in spite of the fact that he DID want a vehicle that would break his Brat Pack Geek-in-Chief image. I felt sorry for him. He was really cute, but that was it. His character, Johnny Walker, speaks to a crowd of having embarrassed himself towards the end of the picture. To me, it seemed that Hall delivered those lines with utter conviction, and I'm not surprised. If this were on my resume, I'd deny it. Hall has, of course, gone on to a viable and even admirable career. I guess it's really true that you can't keep a good man down, even if he makes such a potentially suicidal career choice as this film. It's a testament to the man's drive and determination to succeed that he left trash like this far behind him and kept working.Another gripe I have: screenwriters Zacharias and Buhai wrote the original "Revenge of the Nerds," so they ought to have known what would work in a Youth comedy. Apparently they forgot.The two worst aspects of this film, however, were these: first, it was unbelievably boring (and a bad movie that is boring is the worst bad movie of all); secondly, the lampooning of corruption in collegiate football is a viable topic and it could have worked if the script had been decent, the story been told in a logically plotted arc, Bud Smith hadn't directed and Hall had acted like he cared (and not mumbled his lines as if he were auditioning for the first time at a Junior High School's offering of Romeo and Juliet.) I give this ludicrous waste of my time a 1.
