Average teen flick.

Sixteen Candles is one of John Hughes' earliest movies. During the 1980s Hughes was the guru when it came to classic high school comedies that accurately encapsulate the torment and pain of life as a teenager. This film was Hughes' directorial debut. His career immediately took off as he directed such famous iconic teenage classics as Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club among several others.

Sixteen Candles is unfortunately one of Hughes' weakest films. It had all the suitable ingredients, but it was far too stereotypical and unfunny to be anything special. Over two decades after it was released and I still hear comments from people who have nostalgic memories of seeing the film. I'm sure when it was first released it was very popular. Time just hasn't been good to the film at all.

1980's teen favourite Molly Ringwald plays a teenager named Samantha Baker. Samantha's life hasn't been too good lately and wakes up on the morning of her 16th birthday full of promise and high hopes that it will be a special day. But Samantha's sister is getting married in the next few days and it has taken precedence over everything. Because everyone is so preoccupied with the upcoming wedding they all completely forget about Samantha's birthday. To make things even worse, Sam has a massive crush on the most popular guy in school (Schoeffling), and a young geek (Hall) develops an enormous crush on her.

I thought the concept of this movie was extremely good and I figured that it would be in good hands with Hughes at the helm. Despite such promise I found Sixteen Candles to be a teenage comedy without many laughs at all. Instead there's mindless potty humour, some clichéd jokes and a bunch of stereotypical characters. Most teen comedies from the 80s had a selection of stereotypical characters; however the characters presented here are shallow and played out for laughs. In a film like The Breakfast Club the characters are stereotypical, but also a lot deeper.

The script for this film just didn't have enough laughs. I will admit that there were a few decent lines of dialogue; however most of the jokes were crude and bleak (some even outrageously offensive). The filmmaking is fairly standard for the genre. Hughes knows how to direct a movie quite well. It was just the screenplay (that he penned himself) that ultimately doomed the movie.

Throughout the film's duration I blankly stared at the screen, expecting something interesting or funny to occur. No such luck, unfortunately. I don't know whether this can be attributed to my sense of humour or the screenwriter - either way the laughs are still very limited. I also noticed quite a bit of offensive material thrown in here as well (it basically encourages rape at some point). Ultimately, this script could have been a lot better if Hughes had removed the offensive stuff and instead replaced it with actual laughs.

Molly Ringwald's career was built on the 80s teen flicks she featured in. In this film I couldn't find many redeeming features in her character. Because her family forgot her birthday she feels that she has permission to be a bitch to everybody. I didn't find myself empathising with her very much. A very young Anthony Michael Hall plays an interesting young geek. He's quite irritating at times. Even so, he is still given a few good lines to work with.

Sixteen Candles falls strictly in the teen coming-of-age genre. Time hasn't been good to the film at all. The whole thing is clichéd and predictable, with a few too many unrealistic "feel good" moments. The only redeeming feature of this flick would be the limited but occasionally funny gags that are mainly toilet humour or sex-related dialogue. The impressive 80's soundtrack was another thing that I certainly liked. Some of the music is classic and catchy. If you were a teenager of the 80s you'd remember music like this.

Sixteen Candles is a film you can afford to miss. You're not missing anything spectacular. Honestly, it's not worth your time.