It’s 2017 and I can’t remember the last time we saw a wet T-shirt contest in a movie. Meanwhile, half the movies in the 80s either had one or coulda used one (I’m looking at you, Hannah and Her Sisters). Case in point: Spring Break, one of those 80s time capsule pieces from a period when it was still okay for films to be meaningless fun.
Here’s how meaningless this one is: when two virginal, WASP-y nerds get crazy and spend college spring break in flesh-filled Fort Lauderdale and then accidentally get booked in the same cheapo hotel room as two slick, macho-strut, olive-skinned, speedo-friendly New Yorker pussyhounds, the nerds and the slick guys BECOME FRIENDS.
There’s no moral message about how the nerds are right and the skilled cock-slingers are wrong. Taking your time and finding the right girl is great, but there’s no foul in getting laid by someone you just met at the gas station, either. IT’S ALL GOOD, as the kids today say.
Meanwhile, the girls here are just as horny as the guys. These ladies don’t have to be head-gamed or won over through trial by fire. All a good-hearted guy has to do is be himself and sex will follow.
What’s this movie about? Bikinis and butts and boobs and sun and beer and corny jokes. That about covers it. The antagonist is the exact same one as in all of the old Frankie and Annette beach party movies: a cranky old adult who wants to put a stop to the kids’ good time. Here, it’s a crooked, bribery-slinging politician who’s the stepfather of one of the nerds and has a vested interest in making sure the kid doesn’t have too much fun in the Florida sun, lest it make the press and taint an already shady political career.
The director is Sean S. Cunningham, who also directed Friday the 13th.