Brilliant and touching

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Blistering performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Video games and topless girls. On paper, that's a blue medal idea, especially in the early '80s. But as teen sex comedies go, JOYSTICKS is as cheap as they come. There's not really a plot here so much as a series of raunchy scenes mixed in with goofball hijinks; think ANIMAL HOUSE with coin-op (right down to a low-rent Belushi). But the laughs are nowhere to be found. I tried to put myself back in a teenager mindset, but no chuckles. Make no mistake, there's no high-and-mighty here; if it were just 70 minutes of jiggly ladies playing Pac-Man, this rating would be a lot higher (and I'm all for seeing an arcade being used as a setting). But there's way too much time devoted to flat actors and lame material.4/10

A&E should have a "Making of Joysticks" biography. I'm sure it would be hilarious. I can picture it now. The producers say: "Porkies is a big hit and videogames are making millions a year. Can you write a script that incorporates all of that to make money?" So the writers throw everything in but the kitchen sink: Valley girls, punk rockers, conservative villains looking to stop the fun, a pretty surfer hero, a nerd named Eugene, a fat video game jock, hottubs in vans, screenshots of classic video games. It's an 80's hottub time machine.What makes this film even more fun is the magic it produces when some viewers either get it, and laugh hilariously, or don't (such as my wife) and say "This is so stupid" and walk off in disgust. It's like Beavis and Butthead. Some get it, and some don't. That's the genius of it. This film will be watched by historians a hundred years from now when analyzing the destruction of American culture or perhaps what made it great. Teens now are worried about starving to death the day they hit the job market or think their "smartphones" make them smart. No. We had it better back then. A lot better.

I can't believe all the harsh reviews this movie gets. I think it's a true work of deliciously dreadful 80's trash exploitation movie art that totally nails the rampant hedonism and stupidity of adolescence with uncanny accuracy. All the kids want to do in this film are play video games or make out. They have no ambitions or aspirations towards doing anything meaningful or significant with their lives. They just wanna party and have fun. Come on, people, that's exactly what being a teenager is all about! And boy does "Joysticks" peg this blithely moronic mindset with spot-on incisiveness and authenticity. This movie reaches its true moment of absolute cinematic greatness during the legendary strip video sequence. When the camera pans down to show the hot chick's ample breasts jiggling up and down in extreme eye-popping close-up as she plays the video game those beauteous bouncing boobs perform a majestic ballet that just screams "gleefully mindless sleazy entertainment!" Yeah, the acting stinks, the plot's a paper-thin joke, the humor is crude and sophomoric, the production values are strictly rock bottom, and the 80's slang, clothes, and hairstyles now are hopelessly dated and laughable at this point in time, but "Joysticks" nonetheless reigns supreme as a genuine tacky no-brainer dreck artifact of its era.

The dubious honors given this film are entirely justified. This is, without question, among the most moronic comedies ever made. Quite interesting as a time capsule of the early 1980s, however, and a real gas for anyone who was a youngster at that time. The plot concerns a popular video arcade in danger of being closed down by nogoodnik Joe Don Baker. Who cares about that, though......you rented this to see boobs. Right? Singular boobs. Pairs of boobs. Sets, groups, and crowds of boobs. Yes...JOYSTICKS is a veritable Wall of Boob, and while you're busy boobing it up, you can also enjoy the most sophomoric humor ever be offered up in a teen sex comedy. As an extra bonus, there's a gang of comically over-the-top "punkers", the likes of which were commonplace as guest villains on T.V. crime shows throughout the 80s(tri-color frightwigs, bondage gear, lots of chains...yeah, you remember...)Shamefully fun trash, if you don't mind hitting the kill-switch on your brain for 90 minutes. Wakka Wakka Wakka.4/10