The title says it all. "Hot Times at Montclair High"? Is that the best they could do? Change the word "Fast" for "Hot", and come up with a different name for the school? This gives you an idea of this movie's level of creativity.
It feels episodic, but shouldn't. This is because there is no believable set-up for any of the things that happen in the movie, so everything feels disconnected, and you never come to know any of the "characters". The jock and the punk could've been in a better movie, but the nerd is so over-the-top that he makes the actors in Revenge of the Nerds look subtle. When characters are this much of a collection of clichés, it wears pretty thin when you have to see them on screen for most of the movie's runtime, and it certainly discredits the "serious" issues this one tries to bump up against, ala the Amy Heckerling movie it ripped its title off of.
Issues like child abuse, drug dealing/addiction, and sexual assault get short shrift, all dealt with in such a contrived, perfunctory way that you don't know or care what they're doing in the movie. Of course, there's also some raunch, including a scene with the nerdy characters spying on girls showering. "Ridgemont High" got away with sex and nudity because it dealt with these things in a realistic way, not just to satisfy the audience's need for boobs. They were used to service the plot, not to reveal that the "plot" was in bad need of servicing.
It feels episodic, but shouldn't. This is because there is no believable set-up for any of the things that happen in the movie, so everything feels disconnected, and you never come to know any of the "characters". The jock and the punk could've been in a better movie, but the nerd is so over-the-top that he makes the actors in Revenge of the Nerds look subtle. When characters are this much of a collection of clichés, it wears pretty thin when you have to see them on screen for most of the movie's runtime, and it certainly discredits the "serious" issues this one tries to bump up against, ala the Amy Heckerling movie it ripped its title off of.
Issues like child abuse, drug dealing/addiction, and sexual assault get short shrift, all dealt with in such a contrived, perfunctory way that you don't know or care what they're doing in the movie. Of course, there's also some raunch, including a scene with the nerdy characters spying on girls showering. "Ridgemont High" got away with sex and nudity because it dealt with these things in a realistic way, not just to satisfy the audience's need for boobs. They were used to service the plot, not to reveal that the "plot" was in bad need of servicing.
