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More than 20 years after their days on the beach (and the movie How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), Annette (Annette Funicello) and the former Big Kahuna (Frankie Avalon) - they couldn't use the names DeeDee and Frankie for legal reasons) - have noved to Ohio become a perfectly boring couple, he's a used car salesman, she's an always cheery housewife from the 1950s - much to the dismay of their too-young-to-be-rebellious-but-still-trying son Bobby (Demian Slade). But on their trip to Hawaii, they decide to make a stop in California to visit their daughter Sandi (Lori Loughlin) - who just happens to live in a beach house on their old beach. Sandi of course has been living there for half a year with her boyfriend Michael (Tommy Hinkley), but Kahuna isn't to know, so she tries her best to hide him, but somehow Kahuna gets wind of it anyways. And that only makes him more furious, as he didn't want to come to the beach in the first place, ever since a superwave caught him surfing and sent him into a coma back when. However, this night at the beach bar he meets his old flame Connie (Connie Stevens), who still adores him, and now he wants to stay, she wants to go, and ultimately they have a fight and temporary split. Likewise, Sandi splits with Michael, who later turns out to be Connie's son, and as fate has it, now Kahuna and Michael team up to re-conquer their respective girls by throwing a big beach party - and in a round-about way it works, even if Kahuna almost blows it. Then Zed (Joe Holland) and his crew of punks arrive and claim the beach, and it's decided that ownership of the beach should be decided in a surf-off, Zed against Michael, best of the resident surfers. But Kahuna breaks Michael's foot in an accident, and apparently there's no other decent surfer around, so Kahuna accepts the challenge himself, even if he hasn't been on a surfboard in some 20 years. Now Zed does a decent job while Kahuna has problems to find his footing on the board - when he's suddenly confronted by a superwave like the one all that time ago. Only this time he masters it and can now claim supremacy on the beach.

Now the idea of bringing the Beach Party series back but this time seen from another perspective is a valiant one, and at least some of the guest stars from yesteryear are spirited choices, including former sex kitten Connie Stevens (even if she has never been in a Beach Party movie herself), an under-used Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip, surf guitar legend Dick Dale guitaring it out with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Bob Denver and Alan Hale jr cracking a Gilligan's Island joke. However, as a whole, this movie comes across as rather uninspired as it seems clearly undecided whether to go for the naive charm of the original series or put a modern or even post-modern spin to it - which is also mirrored in the very random mix of musical numbers. Also, while the films of old certainly weren't comedy gold, the humour in this one feels very forced. And from a narrative point of view, the film really seems to lose its plot as for the longest time it's just about Frankie and Annette having to find to one another again, after which the surf-off just seems tagged on. Oh, and regarding the surf-off - the back projections here are even worse than in the 1960s, taking all of the tension out of Frankie's death-defying riding the wave.

In all, it's some fun at least, but taken as a whole a failed attempt.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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