Wayne’s World

Inspired, of course, by the Saturday Night Live sketches, Wayne’s World follows Mike Myers’ Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey’s Garth Algar as they agree to take their public-access show to the national stage. There’s little doubt that Wayne’s World remains one of the best movies to emerge from SNL‘s celebrated stages, as the film, directed by Penelope Spheeris, effectively takes the central characters out of their infamous basement without sacrificing their charm or goofy innocence. It doesn’t hurt, either, that Spheeris, working from a screenplay by Myers, Bonnie Turner, and Terry Turner, has expanded the teenage duo’s universe to include a number of memorable periphery figures, with Tia Carrere’s Cassandra, Wayne’s love interest, and Rob Lowe’s Benjamin Kane, the smarmy villain, certainly standing head-and-shoulders above a very capable supporting cast. As befits its sketch-comedy origins, Wayne’s World has been infused with a pervasively irreverent sense of humor that proves impossible to resist – with many of the film’s jokes and gags, from the consistent breaking of the fourth wall to Ed O’Neill’s hilarious turn as a shell-shocked donut-shop employee, provoking genuine laughs from the viewer. And although the movie admittedly does peter out slightly in its final 15 minutes – the emphasis is increasingly placed on aggressively conventional elements – Wayne’s World is ultimately a better-than-average comedy that benefits substantially from the endlessly charismatic efforts of its two stars.

*** out of ****