Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. Imagine a world where This is Spinal Tap and Repo Man hit theaters on the same day. That is the world of 1984.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory.
This time around it’s Dec. 7, 1984, and we’re off to see 2010, Beverly Hills Cop, City Heat, and The Initiation.
2010
How do you follow up what is arguably one of the greatest films ever made? 2010 takes a big swing, and, for the most part, makes it work.
Set nine years after the failed mission of the Discovery seen in 2001, new events are taking place around Jupiter that are gaining attention. Unfortunately, petty human differences on Earth are threatening anyone’s ability to make it there to check them out. And once they are there, they learn that the famous Monolith was even more than they ever thought.
As 2010 begins, it feels impossible for this film to escape the shadow of its predecessor. But somehow, the film manages to do it. Despite being a follow-up to one of the most studied and loved films out there, 2010 manages to find its own spot in this universe. It doesn’t feel derivative and manages to feel as though it truly belongs in the same universe.
It’s a fun watch and is very much worth your time to check it out if you’ve never seen it before.
Beverly Hills Cop
(This review was originally published in 2019 when I first got this idea for the project. I watched the film again in 2024, and portions of the review have been updated.)
Sitting down to watch Beverly Hills Cop for the first time in several decades was a treat. After having suffered through some questionable comedies throughout this project, it was nice to sit down with one that actually made me laugh again. Sure, I knew all the beats to this one, but 35 years on it still made me laugh.
Beverly Hills Cop came at the height of Eddie Murphy mania. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting this guy, and from this film, it’s clear why. He was funny in just about everything he did, but he was able to deliver some really punchy drama moments as well. I’m certainly not putting him up for an Oscar, but he was believable in those serious moments.
The basic plot of Beverly Hills Cop, however, is threadbare. It hits just about every imaginable cop movie trope you can think of and then some. From the screaming lieutenant to Murphy’s Axel Foley is the only truly competent cop around despite his unorthodox methods.
The plot is just cliche after cliche… and you don’t care. Murphy is the star here, and he was a heck of a lot of fun to watch.
City Heat
This is one of those projects that will do nothing but keep you scratching your head for every second of its run time.
Normally this is where I give you a brief synopsis of the plot of the film. City Heat is such a confusing mess that it is pointless to try to summarize it. Just know that for some reason people thought that teaming up Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds in a period buddy cop film that was devoid of humor for the most part was an awesome idea.
It wasn’t. It was a gigantic wasted opportunity. Instead what we ended up was a soulless production that drags to the point of checking how much time was left constantly.
Reynolds was at an odd point in his career where he seemed to be just taking any project that came his way as we saw with this and Cannonball Run II. Someone should have really been stopping him.
It’s a horrible movie that should just be forgotten for the sake of both their careers.
The Initiation
Remember when Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups had ads about “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate?” Imagine if that concept was a movie.
Kelly (Daphne Zuniga) is plagued by nightmares of a man being burned, but she doesn’t know what it’s about as she has amnesia of anything that occurred in her life up to the age of nine. She engages with a dream study to try to figure it out, but at the same time she is rushing a sorority that is led up by a girl who very clearly wants her to fail.
Of course, as one would expect in a story such as this, there is a lot more to Kelly’s dream than it seems as first and it all comes out by the end.
The Initiation is a bit confused as to what it wants to be. The first half of the film is a college slasher while the second half is spent int he weirdest “mall” you’ve ever seen while it’s closed. It feels like two ideas for slasher films collided and what we got int he end was this Frankenstein’s monster.
Despite this oddity of tone and setting, I rather enjoyed the film. It doesn’t set the slasher genre on its ear by any means, but the dramatic story was enough to keep me engaged throughout, and there were some decent kills in the film as well. Always a Hallmark of a good slasher film.
But seeing this is in the golden age of the genre, it’s just not a movie that’s going to stand out that much when you have the likes of Freddy Krueger being introduced into the pantheon of great killers.
1984 Movie Reviews will return on Dec. 14 with The Cotton Club, Dune, Starman, and Runaway!
