Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Valley Girl’ on Hulu and Amazon Prime, a Grossly Nostalgic Jukebox Musical Remake of the 1983 Rom-Com

New on demand at Amazon, Valley Girl is a musical remake of the 1983 rom-com in which the “Vals” and “punks” represent the Greater Los Angeles cultural divide, and whose clashes inadvertently caused World War III. OK, I’m fibbing — it’s actually Nicolas Cage’s first major film role, which is bigger than World War III ever would have been/will be. The remake has been on the shelf for a couple years, waiting for the controversy around YouTube dingus Logan Paul to die down, since he plays the jock jackass in the movie. Well, it’s here now, finally, riding a toot or two of droopy fanfare. Hooray?

VALLEY GIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s the current day. Surprise — this isn’t totally the same as the original Valley Girl! To cheer up her daughter, cool mom-in-a-Bowie-tee Julie (Alicia Silverstone) recounts the story of her senior year in high school. Flashback to what one assumes is 1983, since Return of the Jedi references are about to be dropped: Young Julie (Jessica Rothe) is a true-blood valley girl, teasing her hair, going shopping, attending roller-skating parties, etc. She and her friends bust into the Go-Go’s We Got the Beat in the middle of the mall, dancing joyous in front of the neon signs and spurting water fountains. Julie’s school holds a pep rally for one guy, its tennis star, Mickey (Logan Paul), as in Mickey Mickey You’re So Fine. Mickey is Julie’s boyfriend. He’s an ape. He has his bros drop their draws to show “PROM?” on their pasty butts. Inexplicably, she says yes. Mickey hosts keggers at his house, which looks a lot like the mall. Life is INSANE.

On the other side of the hill is Hollywood, where the punks scream along to Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation until the cops chase them off. Randy (Josh Whitehouse) is the singer and guitarist for Safety Recall; his roommate is his bassist Jack (Mae Whitman). They play loud, but not really that loud, to be honest. These total wastoids sneer at everything, especially the rich suburban cottonbrains in the valley. The beach is Switzerland for the two clashing tribes, and that’s where Julie and Randy meet, exchanging banter over a tray of nachos. I know what you’re thinking: GIVE IT UP PEOPLE IT’LL NEVER WORK. They’re from TWO different WORLDS. Just end the movie now. They’re doomed. Dooooooooomed.

It’s true — because Julie’s daughter knows the story is obviously not about her dad. And yet they soldier on. Julie dumps Mickey and falls in love with Randy. There’s a scene where everybody sings the Cars’ You Might Think I’m Crazy, and a scene in which Randy twists his band’s arm to play Madonna’s Crazy for You, and that’s where the crazy songs stop, because this isn’t the type of movie that would touch Ozzy’s Crazy Train with a ten-foot pole. There are two montages; references to the space shuttle, camcorders, leg warmers, E.T., Smurfs, etc.; and gratuitous displays of Guess jeans, acid-washed denim and light turquoise Members Only jackets. Randy fights Mickey; Julie and Randy break up; will they make up? Sorry, this is a NO SPOILING ZONE!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is absolutely a jukebox musical like Rock of Ages and Mamma Mia, except much, much cheaper.

Performance Worth Watching: As Julie’s mom, Judy Greer is almost given funny things to do, which would have been nice, because in the right movie, she can be pretty funny.

Memorable Dialogue: Randy: “I don’t want any beef, dude.”

Mickey: “Where’s the beef?”

Sex and Skin: Bare male butts; some makin’ out in the back of the car at makeout point.

Our Take: Valley Girl (2020) adheres tightly to the tried-and-true musical formula by having roughly 12 minutes of actual plot, and padding the run time with musical sequences. So those musical sequences better be astronomically entertaining, right? Right. Well, the musical sequences in Valley Girl (2020) are of the low-to-medium-budget variety, and sometimes come precariously close to resembling actual choreography.

I’d hazard a guess that more money was spent on acquiring the rights to use several screamingly obvious, ubiquitous, worn-out and likely expensive hit pop songs from 1980-83 than on a braintrust who might devise a vaguely interesting way to arrange the songs and subsequently present them comprehensively within the context of a visual medium. This is a long way of saying the musical sequences feature some dancing that occasionally looks like flailing, and the principals occasionally don’t look like they’re about to bump into each other.

As for the rest of the movie, it’s puffery laden with dialogue written by people who think references are jokes, when in reality, jokes are jokes: “Frankie says relax!”, “OK, no leg warmers,” etc. The conflicts are airy and anemic, and the characters make wafers look like pillow top mattresses. In the lead, Rothe is reasonably charismatic, but is asked to do nothing heftier than look forlorn o’ertop a pile of rapidly cooling tater tots. It’s less a story, more a shameless assemblage of nostalgia.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Valley Girl (2020) is even flimsier than expected. You could cue up a retro playlist and page through some old Teen Beat magazines and have almost the exact same experience.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch Valley Girl (2020) on Hulu

Watch Valley Girl (2020) on Prime Video