Cursed with a little bit of free time this weekend, a need for a break from coding, and no desire to go out, I went to Borders on Saturday night to buy a book on Java (the incomparable Thinking in Java), since I discovered after a few hours of coding it on Friday that I’ve gotten a bit rusty (more on that later). Somehow, I ended up with all four “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, bundled to sell at $19.99. The original is a favorite of mine, but I hadn’t seen the other three, so I figured, why not? Then I watched them all in a row.

The first one, of course, is fantastic. The second one is less thrilling but still reasonably watchable, though I probably won’t watch it again, and three and four are… abysmal. Painful pleas by Fox for money. Three is purely awful, but four rounds a corner and comes out on the side of being entertaining simply because it is so bad. The script is stupid in the second movie (which could, I still think, have been so much more), and just deteriorates from there. The dialogue in the fourth movie is so awkward and contrived that it’s impossible to dedicate yourself to the story–suspend your disbelief. Somehow, after the first movies, everything comes so easily to the nerds–the pretty people all start evil, then lots of shenanigans ensue, and then the pretty people proclaim themselves nerds at the end, or get run out of town.

My advice: Follow Anthony Edwards’s example. Avoid three and four like the plague, tread lightly on the second one, and savor the original. Really–Edwards went on to be Goose in Top Gun and Dr. Greene on E.R., and Robert Carradine went on to play… Lizzie McGuire’s dad.

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