Wayne’s World (1992) (Movie Review)

   When it comes to my favorite comedies, they’ll either make me laugh, or just put me in a good mood with repeat viewings. The 1992 comedy classic “Wayne’s World” is one of those special cases in which I’m both laughing hard, but I’m just put in a very happy, and up-beat mood. As far as I’m concerned, what “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Gandhi” and “The Ten Commandments” stand for Epic movies … “Wayne’s World” stands for Comedies. It’s a film that simply embraces its own silly nature, and invites it’s target audience to just have a great time along with its goofy quirks and quotable lines.

During the very early 2000’s, I was going through my own personal transition of childhood to teenager, and it was the time when I was most obsessed with comedies. Needless to say, “Wayne’s World” was dynamite for me at the time, as I certainly enjoyed the film upon my first viewing, but as I got older I found myself understanding more of the hummer, and it just got funnier every time. While I’ve never been able to single out an all-time favorite comedy, I would say that “Wayne’s World” is one of those cases in which it goes one step above simply being a genera favorite, and has a special place among my own favorite movies. I should probably stop … catch my breath … and cover the basics of the movie before I keep praising all the details. One quick spoiler warning about those details, it’s impossible to review a comedy without highlighting some of my favorite jokes, I wont mention all the good ones, but special gags in the film will be highlighted.   

   Based on the Mike Myers “Saturday Night Live” sketch of the same name, Myers in his motion picture debut plays heavy metal fan Wayne Campbell, who along with his best friend Garth, played by his SNL co-star Dana Carvey, broadcast their own independent public-access TV show called Wayne’s World. Needless to say, their program attracts a big crowd, mainly from their fellow locals in Aurora. It also gets the attention of a crooked TV exec named Benjamin, played by Rob Lowe, who aims to exploit the program on his own cable Network. While Wayne and Garth are eager to make a professional carrier out of their little show, they soon discover the road to the big time is a hectic one, with all kinds of set-backs, and emotional hurdles to overcome. Before too long, the big stakes for Wayne go beyond the success of his program, and are more focused on whether he’ll win the affection of a local Rock N’ Roll goddess named Cassandra, before the nasty Benjamin takes her for himself. 

   Honestly, the plot revolving around the villain exploiting the show is not the strength of the film … the real strength of this movie comes from the characters, and the different funny ways we get to spend time with them on their simple, yet personal journey’s. At first glance, Wayne and Garth look like a pair of one-note goofballs, but they’re really more like children who never quiet grew-out of their childhood mindset, and that makes them more enduring than straightforward silly characters. 

There’s a reason the most famous scene of the whole movie is Wayne and friends singing Queens “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the car at the top of their lungs … because this is the moment that perfectly highlights what these characters are … their kids who treat every day like a fun night on the town … and that’s what makes them so infectious. Honestly, my favorite aspects of the film are simply spending little slices of quality time with these guys as they either play hockey in front of their house or when they pal around at an airport, with a plane landing over their heads, and they get a kick from the huge gusts of wind blowing their faces back. For me, the transition of funny characters into great characters is when your comedic leads feel like real people you could spend a day with … which is to say, in my younger years I always imagined myself paling around with these guys. Another tiny highlight of mine is this little randomly placed montage of Wayne and Garth goofing around in the big city, and it feels like it could have served as the intro of a sit-com.

   It’s just these little touches that give this movie so much personality, and fills me with cheer, along with all the funny highlights. It goes without saying that Wayne and Garth are two of my all-time favorite comedy leads, and they carry this film with ease. Outside of this movie, I find Mike Myers a perfectly decent talent, but more often then not, I just see Myers doing his usual shtick. However, that is thankfully not the case for his portrayal of Wayne Campbell, as I don’t see the actor at all … I just see this personality alive and in the flesh. Back in my early teen years, I so badly tried to replicate Wayne’s personality as my own … but soon realized I was better off just being me. Still, every time my friends and I played outside, I always shouted “Game On!”. As for Dana Carvey, I once again find that all of my real fondness for the talent comes from his personality of Garth, as I feel that’s his most well realized character portrayal.      

  The supporting players also have their strengths, which add to the appeal of the film … especially Wayne’s spunky love interest Cassandra, played by the always lovely Tia Carrere. Needless to say, Mike Myers reaction to his attractive co-star in the film kind of mired my own. She had it all … style, charisma, vocals, charm, fashion, fighting moves, and killer looks. It’s a terrific showcase of a female co-star standing head-and-shoulder with the larger-than-life comedic talents of our main leads. Over the years, I still loved seeing Tia Carrere in other movies like “True Lies”, or voice acting in Disney’s “Lilo and Stich”, although, I don’t think anything else quite matched that fiery spark she brought to the role of Cassandra. 

   Another important ingredient to this film is director Penelope Spheeris, who really knew how to personalize the overall vision and presentation of the film. While other comedies like “Airplane!” are set in a reality that behaves like a live-action cartoon, “Wayne’s World” is set in the real world, but still gets away with an anything goes personality, as all the events are mainly kept in the perspective of our quirky leads. Seeing this at a young age introduced me to cinematic ways a comedy can cleverly break the forth-wall, and have interactions past the boundaries of the camera. Wayne and Garth frequently talk to the audience, and openly state that they’re the only ones allowed to speak to the camera. When I first saw this movie, I was a little too young to understand the satire revolving around a montage of product placement, but over time, I gradually understood, and now I think it’s one of the funniest scenes of the whole film. Garth: “It’s like people do things because they get paid, and that’s just really sad.”     

   This movie also features one of my all-time favorite spontaneous movie references I’ve ever seen in a comedy. As we lead into the third act, Wayne is racing off to rescue his girlfriend, runs a red-light, and as a result, gets pulled over by a police officer. In a sudden, humorous twist, the cop turns out to be the evil T-1000 from “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”, and played again by Robert Patrick. For me, the timing couldn’t have been better, as I was just coming off watching “T2” for my very first time, and was riding the high of having the T-1000 as one of my new favorite villains. As such, seeing him sporadically walk into “Wayne’s World” was one of the funniest movie references I’d ever experienced. In general, I usually find references to popular movies in comedies to be kind of cheap, but the way this moment was built-up and executed just works so well, even after “T2’s” popularity.

   Another brilliant satire revolves around the film’s multiple endings, and seeing the different funny ways the film could have turned out. Upon my first viewing, I was taken by surprise when we segued into the films initial “sad ending”, and I thought the movie was trolling me. The satirical “Scooby-Doo ending” is okay, but no-where close to the brilliant spontaneity of the previous Terminator reference. The actual ending is admittedly a little too abrupt for my liking, but at least the characters still made appearances during the credits, and hoping the audience didn’t think the movie sucked. Garth: “I can’t believe they faded to black while we were still talking.”  

   In the end, “Wayne’s World” is yet another great Comedy that just gets funnier every time I watch it, and never fails to just put me in a cheerful mind-set. I can’t act like it’s a film for everyone, but if you’re a general comedy fan, or a fan of satires with a rock N’ Roll backdrop … then this film is mandatory to check out. Its chalk full of memorable catch phrases, fun music, pop culture jokes, and the characters themselves are so enduring. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey have such great individual personalities, and they make for one of my all-time favorite comedic buddy teams. The rest of the cast do their jobs very well, and the story is perfectly simple, as it supports the films string of funny gags. As far as I’m concerned, this film still stands out with its own unique voice, presentation, and is all around one of the most perfectly constructed comedies I’ve ever seen. 

Thanks for reading my review of the 1992 comedy classic “Wayne’s World” … and continue to enjoy the movies you Love!