Does anybody remember back when the networks would run cheap, made-for-TV movies on Monday nights? I used to watch them all the time. I even looked forward to them. They were mostly dumb and brainless, and completely non-threatening in any way. It’s strange to think about how television used to operate. It’s even stranger knowing that I watch probably hundreds of these Monday night movies and remember almost nothing about any of them.
I can’t say with any certainty if my friends and I watched Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation when it aired in the summer of 1992 or not, but it’s definitely something we would have watched. I’m sure we wouldn’t have liked it any better back then, but at least it would have been easily wiped from memory with the next dice-rolling adventure or episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m finding myself forgetting things about it already. Good thing I took notes.
I’ll be blunt. Nerds III is a dumb, pointless movie. I can’t compare it to any of its predecessors because I can recall almost nothing about them either, but I imagine it lowers an already below-sea-level bar. How anyone could say to themselves, “I’m going to make a movie,” and have the results be Revenge of the Nerds III is beyond me. It boggles my mind that this was someone’s baby – that the “bad” scenes and takes were cut and that there were likely multiple drafts of the script.
There may not be any sexual assaults like from what I can recall of the first film (out of curiosity I looked it up – the original from 1984 is pretty gross in this regard) but there is some casual racism and homophobia played for confusing humor. I didn’t laugh once (well, maybe a little from the line “There’s no greater friend to the nerd than the American DJ,” but only reluctantly), I did, however, audibly cringe several times. And at one point, I took the time to write in my notes, “Is this still on?” Make of that what you will.
The weird thing is that Nerds III could be seen as an allegory for racism and classism if it wasn’t so idiotic. Take this line from Booger (Curtis Armstrong), as he solemnly chastises the once proud nerd Louis (Robert Carradine): “You’ve become the worst kind of nerd…a self-hating one.” I’m afraid that’s about as deep as Nerds III gets. The rest is numbingly trivial. Interestingly, I would have enjoyed this much more had the original commercials from its airing in 1992 been included (like these).
I didn’t mention it in the review, but Morton Downey Jr. is in this too. So, you know – classy.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.