Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #44 Wayne's World
Box Office: $121.7 Million
Oscar Nominations: None
Oscar Wins: None
MovieRankings.Net: 87/100
Available To Stream: Hulu
Wayne's World is the greatest SNL movie by a mile. The only other even remotely decent ones are The Blues Brothers and MacGruber and that's not even close. It's such a bad list that Wayne's World 2 is probably next. It shouldn't be much of a surprise that taking a 5 minute sketch and making a 90 minute movie out of it is a nearly impossible task.
You'd think other sketch movies would try to steal the formula from Wayne's World but I don't think it's that easy. The reason Wayne's World works is the sketch it's based off of isn't a one-joke sketch. This isn't Night At The Roxbury when there is nothing there besides goofy guys at a club. Wayne and Garth are both unique characters that you can delve into. There's much more meat on those bones than most sketches have to offer.
Mike Myers has had a very bizarre career. Of course, his great ability with characters allowed Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers to thrive. You can even add Shrek to this. But, he never seems comfortable being anything close to himself. As his career thrived, he leaned more and more into not being himself. He was the fucking Cat In The Hat.
I think this need to rely on prosthetics killed his career. Even when he hosted The Gong Show, he needed to play this weird Tommy Maitland character. Mike Myers is a very funny guy. Just be Mike Myers! Be a human being! Wayne is BY FAR my favorite Mike Myers character because it's the most human.
Dana Carvey is obviously the perfect Garth too. It's tough to play shy on screen but he does so without appearing too meek and still allowing his opinions and thoughts to be heard and seen. I love the panic on his face when the show opens when Wayne bails and it's just him on camera. The panic and anxiety is so clear. To have a character be so soft-spoken but yet so funny is perfect for this movie.
I love how this movie fully embraces the weirdness that is this sketch and these people. Everyone from Ed O'Neill to Rob Lowe to Alice Cooper completely buy in. The movie is constantly winking to the camera (the constant sponsors when they say they won't sell out, literally talking to the audience at times) but yet has a lot of heart and you care about these people. This was directed by Penelope Spheeris who fought so much with Myers on the set that she was not asked to come back and do the sequel. Of course, the sequel was filled with fighting as well (this time it was Myers and Carvey who didn't get along). Spheeris went on to direct The Beverly Hillbillies, The Little Rascals and Black Sheep but none of those came close to the originality that you see in Wayne's World.
As time goes by, it's clear that Wayne's World is just an anomaly. Making a movie out of a sketch is not as easy as this movie makes it look. After this, they tried a bunch: Coneheads, It's Pat, Stuart Smalley Saves The World among them. They were all critical and box office failures. They also didn't have Mike Myers being a somewhat relatable human being. We may never get a great SNL movie again but we can hold out hope that Myers can be that living and breathing person again.
44. Wayne's World
45. The Insider
46. Back To The Future Part III
47. A Bronx Tale
48. The People Vs. Larry Flynt
49. Eyes Wide Shut
50. The Sandlot
51. Happy Gilmore
52. Contact
53. The Green Mile
54. Man On The Moon
55. Boyz N The Hood
56. Grosse Pointe Blank
57. Independence Day
58. The Rainmaker
59. Go
60. The Firm
61. Magnolia
62. The Talented Mr. Ripley
63. Tommy Boy
64. The Usual Suspects
65. In The Line Of Fire
66. My Cousin Vinny
67. Awakenings
68. JFK
69. Toy Story
70. Home Alone
71. Jerry Maguire
72. Titanic
73. Billy Madison
74. Apollo 13
75. Braveheart
76. Edward Scissorhands
77. Cape Fear
78. The River Wild
79. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
80. 12 Monkeys
81. Stir Of Echoes
82. Mission: Impossible
83. Total Recall
84. Quiz Show
85. For Love Of The Game
86. Being John Malkovich
87. Men In Black
88. Scream
89. Alive
90. Three Kings
91. Glengarry Glen Ross
92. Die Hard With A Vengeance
93. The Blair Witch Project
94. Twister
95. Dirty Work
96. Election
97. Tremors
98. Any Given Sunday
99. The Wedding Singer
100. Clerks