Law and order is breaking down in America. During the 1990's, crimes committed by American youths has escalated out of control. Many areas have become the territory of teenage gangs, fighting each other and the authorities. By 1997 these areas had become so rife with violence and murder schools can barely function and in these gangland war zones the police have washed their hands of all responsibility, leaving them as 'Free Fire Zones'. One such 'Free Fire Zone' exists in Seattle and right in the middle is Kennedy High School, which in 1999 re-opens its doors in a new experiment to bring education back to the lawless streets run by two gangs, the Blackhearts and the Razorheads. The new principle of Kennedy High is Miles Longford (Malcolm McDowell!) who has introduced a radical new element to the school, cyborg teachers! Enlisting the help of Megatech, Longford brings in the scary-looking cybernetics expert Dr. Forrest (Stacy Keach with a terrifying white contact lense/white mullet combo) and his three 'Tactical Educational Units': Mr. Bryles (Patrick Kilpatrick - Death Warrant), Mr. Hardin (John P. Ryan - Futurworld) and Ms. Connors (blaxploitation queen Pam Grier!). As part of the program, former students now residing in prison are released to return to school, and one of these is Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg) a former member of the Blackhearts. Greeted by his brothers Angel (Joshua John Miller - Near Dark) and Sonny, Cody has changed while in the slammer (and boy does that word take on a whole new meaning after watching Oz). He's no longer interested in being a part of the Blackhearts, he's off drugs, and he just wants to go back to school and learn. Even worse, Principle Longford was idiotic enough to enrol his suburban teen daughter Christie (Traci Lind) at Kennedy High and she immediately takes a liking to our reformed gang leader. It becomes obvious that something is very wrong with the new teachers however, as their use of violence quickly escalates when pupils start to turn up dead, much to the amusement of the diabolical Dr. Forrest. When Cody and Christie start poking their nose in where it doesn't belong, the teachers decide that their influence needs to extend beyond the classroom as their original military programming kicks in, and they set out to force the rival Razorhead and Blackheart gangs into conflict, weakening them for an easy kill.

Ten years before Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale there was Class of 1999! Okay, so that's like comparing Albert Pyun's Arcade to The Matrix, but Class of 1999 does share some vague similarities with the cult Japanese classic. Both deal with a breakdown in society caused not by the government or military conflict, but from the disillusionment of youth and their descent into criminal activity, causing the shut down of schools and terrifying the rest of society. However, beyond that there is little to compare between the two films except for the vague theme of forcing the youths to fight each other which is of course a major plot point in Battle Royale and only a minor factor in the film we're looking at here. While Battle Royale was a scathing criticism of society and the school system of Japan, Class of 1999 could not hope to show much in the way of intelligence beyond its intriguing initial concept. What we have here is a in essence more dumb action with some cheesy Terminator imitations thrown in for good measure and director Mark L. Lester (Showdown in Little Tokyo) could never hope to be as skilled or experienced as the sadly departed Fukasaku-san. Nor can the film claim to have any connections to Lester's previous work Class of 1984 beyond a similar title, this is at heart a cliché-riddled and very, very silly sci-fi b-movie. The silliness comes thick and fast, like how a character as conservative as McDowell's Longford seems to be would ever put his trust in the hands of such scary people! Stacy Keach's plays Dr. Forrest is just so obviously a villain and his physical appearance just makes this even more obvious. Also, Pam Grier rarely gets beyond a quietly menacing scowl, John P. Ryan looks like the closet Nazi history teacher from hell, and Patrick Kilpatrick looks one childhood trauma recollection away from a full-on psychotic episode. One is hardly surprised when the killing starts, one must wonder just how stupid Longford was meant to be allowing a military cybernetics company loose in his school to start with!

Cody Culp and his gang friends are no less silly, in part to their dreadful lack of dress sense, but also because of the acting performances on display. Bradley Gregg acts as if he didn't actually understand a word of the script he was given, but just did the film anyway. His overacting reaches ludicrous levels at times, as he has THIS problem WHERE he inSISTS on randomly ADDING emphasis to WORDS and SYLLABLES for NO particular reaSON. This gets pretty distracting at times, especially when delivering some truly cringe worthy one-liners with all the subtlety of an electric drill to the face. Also, call me "height-ist" if you must, but when one decides to watch an action movie, they want to see a hero with some sort of, shall we say, feel about him or her that suggests they are truly capable of showing us what a tough sumbitch they are. Be it muscle, height, martial arts ability, or ability to look effortlessly cool, we have been conditioned to expect some sort of distinctive quality to our action hero. Sadly, Bradley Gregg does not display any such aspect to his performance or appearance, in fact female co-star Traci Lind is at least as tall if not taller than him! While the likes of Jean Claude Van Damme have had their lack of tallness masked and hidden thanks to various tricks, no attempt is made here and we're left with a whiny punk who looks about 15 and can't act, not terribly inspiring. Traci Lind is quite cute and spunky as the pseudo love interest of the piece but her performance just doesn't stand, she looks and sounds like she should be in some irritating straight-to-TV teen drama, not in an attempt at a serious action sci-fi movie. Joshua Miller doesn't convince either, and never comes close to his standout performance in Near Dark, here you spend more time marvelling at how weird-looking he is than giving a crap about his character. The rest of the Blackhearts are a motley bunch too, and look especially silly when in their gang's official garb, daft-looking jackets that make them look like they're off to an Adam Ant concert. Yes, things look a little dated. Sadly despite the presence of Malcolm McDowell in the film, he brings little to the table with a disappointing and obviously phoned-in performance. Its also disappointing that themes about why the descent of a nation's youth into violence, and how Cody copes with going back to the sleazy, violent and drug addicted world that he no longer wants a part of, are not developed and things quickly break down into over the usual action clichés.

Despite all of this however, there is still some enjoyment to be had thanks to the solid group of b-movie actors in support, and the quick pacing and action of the movie. Stacy Keach steals every scene he's in as Dr. Forrest, thanks to his unusual appearance and display of barely concealed evil intent (even though what his intensions actually are seem pretty vague). Even better about Keach's performance is he doesn't overact, and had this film had a bigger budget and the cast been of a higher quality his performance could very well have been taken more seriously. Our three cyborgs are also great fun and have far more interesting characters than most of the human cast members. Pam Grier is restrained and smokin' hot as she lays down the law in her chemistry class, her dead pan delivery of yet more cheesy one-liners entertains greatly. Also of note is John P. Ryan's strong of air of menace behind the waistcoat and smoking pipe and Patrick Kilpatrick who seems born to play the muscle bound lunatic in b-movie fare such as this. Mark L. Lester might not be much for intelligent filmmaking but he does a good job here with the pace of the film, setting the basic plot up quite nicely in the first half of the film without too much drag, and then getting on with delivering the action goods for the last 40 minutes. While not driven with the fastest of pace nor the most elegant or exciting of moves (yes, Hong Kong action movies have left me thoroughly spoiled) the scenes of gun battles are quite good fun with enough cool explosions thrown in. Best of all are the fantastically cheesy special effects in the climactic moments of the film as the cybernetic nature of our three roboteachers are exploited in creative fashion. The three of them sprout different weapons from their arms with varying degrees of success, but one cannot help but enjoy them lay waste to the teen gangs with their novel firepower, particularly Kilpatrick's cool rocket launcher hand. Oh, and we can't forget a terrible attempt to replicate some of the effects from The Terminator in a plot twist that only the most naïve of cinema-goers wouldn't see coming. Great fun all the same.

In the end, despite my poor attempts to compare Class of 1999 to vastly superior and bigger budgeted Japanese fare, at heart this is an unoriginal and comprehensively silly yet fun b-movie the likes of which we're seeing much less of in this day of digital video, direct to the Sci-Fi Channel dross. To be fair to Bradley Gregg and company, the goofy fun of the movie would have been reduced greatly had they actually been good actors, and Lester provides enough action and cheesy SFX to keep the average b-movie actor entertained. You could do much worse than seek out this prime slice of cinema cheese.