CLASS OF 1999 (1990) Review

Directed by: Mark L. Lester
Written by: Mark L. Lester, C.Courtney Joyner, John Skipp
Starring: Bradley Gregg, Traci Lind, Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach, Pam Grier, Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan

"HIRED TO TEACH. PROGRAMMED TO KILL!"

Welcome to the distant future of the year 1999. The good ol' U.S. of A (and specifically its education system) is falling apart and large areas of its major cities are under the control of vicious gangs. These so-called 'Free-Fire Zones' are so out of control that even the police are too afraid to enter, resulting in lawless battlegrounds and constant gang-driven turf wars. Kennedy High School just happens to be smack-bang in the middle of one of these Free-Fire Zones in an area of Seattle which is home to a pair of warring gangs; The Blackhearts and the Razorheads.

Principal Miles Langford (McDowell) is so sick of the unruly students and lawless state of his school that he agrees to take part in an experiment headed by Dr. Bob Forrest (Keach), a member of the Board of Government Educational Defence. The experiment involves bringing a trio of new teachers to the school, but not just any teachers. The new faculty members may look human but are in fact ex-military cyborgs, reprogrammed to both educate and discipline their students. At first they function as expected, getting just physical enough to keep the students in line, but soon the cyborgs begin to revert to their original military programming and their discipline turns brutal and fatal. Now it's up to recently paroled Blackheart Cody (Gregg) and principal's daughter Christie (Lind) to try and unite the two rival gangs and destroy their new teachers before they all find themselves in eternal detention.

Director Mark L. Lester's follow up to the cult classic CLASS OF 1984 is a pseudo-sequel (later followed by CLASS OF 1999 II) which takes quite a departure from the original and is probably all the better off for it. A direct sequel just wouldn't have worked but 1999 takes a different path and lets action, violence and special effects take centre stage, giving little concern to things like 'plot development' or 'character development' - but hey who needs that kind of crap anyway? Indeed the last half hour of the film is a spectacular melange of motorbikes, bullets, blood and shit blowing up. It's almost like BRONX WARRIORS meets THE TERMINATOR as the delinquent thugs race around the school trying to destroy the weaponized 'teachers'.

But there's plenty more to enjoy aside from the violence and effects work like the suitably thumping soundtrack including an early tune from Nine Inch Nails (who were credited as The Nine Inch Nails). And of course I can't forget to mention the barrage of amazing/terrible one-liners. Telling the History teacher-bot "You're history!" before blowing his cranial circuitry all over the wall? Priceless. Plus how many movies give you the opportunity to get a glimpse of Pam Grier's robo-nipples? Stacy Keach does a great job hamming it up as a mad scientist type too. It's hard to believe that McDowell, Grier and Keach all ended up in this low budget schlockfest but I'm glad they did. In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say (and I'm probably in the minority here) that CLASS OF 1999 is infinitely more enjoyable than its predecessor. It may not be as 'good' a movie but it is much more entertaining. Well worth a look.