Watching Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style again after all these years made me instantly question my sanity as a teenager. Did I actually like this crap back then? I know this was never my favorite thing that they put out for Saved by the Bell, but I didn't remember it being this awful. For starters, Screech is at his all-time most obnoxious in this movie. He's acting like a strange space alien the entire time, and it made me question if he ever acted like a human being on the show. Almost every other character is at least a caricature of a normal person, but that didn't make them much more enjoyable to watch. Even when they are trying to do something nice, they have to accomplish it in the most lazy and pathetic way possible. Their success in this film comes through nothing more than lies and downright criminal activity, which I suppose is Zack Morris's modus operandi, but now that I'm an adult all I can see is that he is in the wrong. It's kind of a shame to watch poor Dean Jones being dragged down with this ship.
I know that production for a TV movie is different from a theatrical motion picture, but the shoddy quality of this one is inexcusable. It's filmed like an extended episode of the TV show, so the shots of Hawaii almost all appear to be stock footage, and the rest looks only marginally better than a home movie. The actors even have the same cadence and rhythm that they used in episodes of the show, so they pause after all the lame humor for a laugh track and it is extremely awkward since no one is going to even offer a chuckle at this nonsense. The music is a blend of tracks used in the TV show, and there are a few awful original songs they throw in just to make this "special." The plot is not an engaging one, and is 100% predictable. The romance for Zack is painful to watch, and some of the cliche-filled lines that come out of their mouths were embarrassing. At this point I don't trust my memory of Saved by the Bell, but I will say when I was younger I thought the season where they spent the summer working on the beach was much better than this, so perhaps this was an all-time low. But I won't be rushing to watch any more of this nonsense to find out.
