Weird Science (film) - Plot

Plot

The film takes place in the fictitious Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois, as two high school nerds, Gary Wallace (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt Donnelly (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) are in their high school gym watching a group of girls practicing their gymnastics routines. The two boys are lamenting their lot in life and fantasizing about being popular and being able to attract girls. The scene ends when the two geeks are pantsed by school bullies, Ian (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Max (Robert Rusler).

The action then cuts to Wyatt's house, where the boys have the house to themselves because Wyatt's parents went to Cincinnati for the weekend to meet Wyatt's sister Chloe's fiance. Inspired by the film Frankenstein, the boys decide to create a "virtual" and "perfect" woman on their home computer (Memotech MTX512). They design their "perfect" woman by filling their computer with various forms of data and images. When their computer reaches capacity, they decide to hack into a government mainframe for more processing power and data storage capacity. As a finishing touch they connect a Barbie doll to Wyatt's computer through a series of wires and electrodes. At the exact moment they hit "enter" to execute their program, a lightning bolt strikes their house leading to a series of supernatural occurrences. The scene ends with a violent explosion and when the smoke clears a beautiful woman (Kelly LeBrock) emerges from Wyatt's bathroom. Her first words to the boys are "so, what would you little maniacs like to do first?"

In addition to being totally devoted to them, this woman has a number of superhuman abilities, such as memory manipulation, molecular manipulation, and reality warping. Despite her willingness to be everything Wyatt and Gary wanted, the boys are too intimidated to take advantage of the opportunities presented by her appearance, as when they keep their jeans on while showering with her. Realizing that the boys need to lower some of their inhibitions, she transmogrifies their poorly-styled outfits into more flattering clothes before taking them out for a night on the town in a pink 1959 Cadillac convertible that she conjures out of thin air. After the boys name her Lisa, she conjures fake identification for the boys, and takes them to a blues club. Although initially uncomfortable in these new surroundings, the trio eventually end up ingratiating themselves to the staff and some regulars, in part with the help of alcohol, staying until late at night.

As the trio head home, Lisa asks Wyatt what he will do about his older brother, Chet (Bill Paxton), a brash military school student who physically and emotionally abuses him, and extorts blackmail money as well, as he does when he brings the inebriated Gary home past his curfew. After putting Gary to bed, Wyatt shares a kiss with Lisa. When Wyatt begs Lisa to stay out of sight so that Chet does not see her, she tells him that he cannot hide in fear from his own brother, but does as Wyatt asks. When Chet appears, he further harasses and extorts more money from Wyatt when he sees Wyatt wearing Lisa's purple panties. At a shopping mall, Gary and Wyatt, feeling secure after their time with Lisa, are humiliated again by Ian and Max, who dump an Icees onto them in front of the whole mall, upsetting their own girlfriends, Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson). Ian and Max offer an insincere apology to their girlfriends, who relent because Ian and Max have high social standing at school, and do not wish to give up that privilege themselves. Ian and Max then spot Lisa on the escalator and abandon the girls to run after her. When they catch up with her, she invites them to a party at Wyatt's. Gary then pulls up in a Porsche 928 and he, Wyatt, and Lisa leave together, to Ian and Max's chagrin.

The milquetoast Wyatt begs Lisa to cancel the party, but she refuses, pointing out that it will lead to the popularity that he and Gary wanted. She then picks up Gary at his house, but when Gary's parents, Al (Britt Leach) and Lucy (Barbara Lang), object to Gary going out with a woman Lisa's age, Lisa stands up to Gary's father, pointing a gun at him, and manipulates their memories so that Lucy forgets the incident, and Al forgets he has a son. In shock over this turn of events on the ride back to Wyatt's house, Lisa tries to lighten the moment by shooting Gary in the face with the gun, revealing it to be a water pistol. Back at the house, the boys are skeptical that anyone will show up because they have no friends, but when the doorbell rings, a crowd of teenagers is present, and the party begins. Gary and Wyatt, however, still too intimidated to socialize, lock themselves in the bathroom. At the party are Ian, Max, Deb, and Hilly. Deb and Hilly meet Gary and Wyatt in the bathroom, shocked to discover that they, not Lisa, are the hosts of the party. Meanwhile, Max and Ian, after being belittled by the man tending bar, encounter Lisa, and try to make a pass at her. She refuses, explaining that she "belongs" to Gary and Wyatt, and does whatever they say.

Ian and Max then scheme to offer Gary and Wyatt permission to date their own girlfriends in exchange for dating Lisa, leading Gary and Wyatt to explain how they created her, and an attempt to recreate the process in Wyatt's bedroom with the computer. They forget, however, to connect the computer to a Barbie doll, instead leaving it clamped to a Time magazine on whose cover is Pershing medium-range ballistic missile. As soon as the machine starts up, the kitchen turns blue, a painting starts dancing, the chimney proceeds to suck up all the furniture in the living room and launch it into the lake out back, and the "Weird Science" song starts playing. The missile, like Lisa, becomes real and ends up emerging in the middle of Wyatt's house from underground. When Gary and Wyatt are dejected by this, Lisa decides to provoke a confrontation in order to spur them to stand up for themselves. She conjures a group of mutant bikers to disrupt the party. At first the bikers intimidate and humiliate Gary and Wyatt, but after they accost Deb and Hilly, Gary and Wyatt stand up to the mutants, with Gary producing the gun that Lisa used earlier with his parents. After forcing the mutants to leave, Gary assures Wyatt that the gun is a water pistol by firing it, but when a real bullet fires out of it, everyone present, including Deb and Hilly, are impressed by the boys. They end up pairing off, Gary with Deb, and Wyatt with Hilly.

The following morning, Chet returns, and is outraged by the state of the house, in particular his bedroom (he goes in to find it snowing in his room), and further terrorizes Wyatt and his friends. Lisa, however, instructs Gary and Wyatt to take Deb and Hilly home, and then confronts Chet, informing him that he will no longer threaten, abuse or extort money from Wyatt, much to Chet's amusement. Gary and Wyatt take the girls home, each one sharing a kiss with his new girlfriend, though they are left with the question of what to do with Lisa. Back at the house, Lisa has transformed Chet into a squat, green, grotesque creature, humbling him enough to apologize to Wyatt. They then speak to Lisa, who understands that the boys now have girlfriends, which is all she ever wanted for them. After saying their goodbyes, she disappears in a cloud of smoke and the damage to the house, along with Chet's transformation, is immediately reversed, just in time for the return of Wyatt's parents.

In the epilogue, a group of male high school gym students socialize, until they hear the new gym teacher's whistle. When their teacher turns out to be Lisa, dressed in form-hugging leotard and a cutoff T-shirt, the entire class of boys faint and Lisa looks to the camera and winks.