NipPierce Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Michael_Elliott Joysticks (1983) ** (out of 4)The nerd Eugene Groebe (Leif Green) is excited to start his first job, which just happens to be at the local video arcade. Before long the arcade comes under attack from a parent (Joe Don Baker) who wants to see it closed because he feels these type of games ruin the minds of young people.Greydon Clark wrote and directed this film, which is another in a long line of teenage sex comedies but of course this one here mixes in arcade games so that it can appeal to even more people. I went into this movie not knowing what to expect and to be honest it started off okay but it quickly started to fall apart. It's certainly not an awful movie but there's no doubt that it's lacking in regards to laughs.I think one of the biggest problems with the film is the fact that it's basically a rip-off of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE as you've got the slob fat guy, a "mean" person trying to take away the place the kids love to hang and you've even got a court like sequence where the two sides discuss the "problems" with the arcade. All of these scenes just remind you that you're not watching that other film, which is certainly much better.Another problem with this movie is that there's just not much done with it. The film gets off to a fun start with the nerd being picked on by a couple sexy ladies. There's plenty of nudity early on and we get some rather funny sex scenes early on but then all of this pretty much goes away and we're left with people doing battles with video games. This here really wasn't all that interesting and there certainly weren't any laughs.JOYSTICKS is an okay movie that has a few laughs here and there but at the end of the day there's no question that it's a "C" level comedy that just doesn't have enough going for it.

utubes This movie is great if you want to get a small glimpse of what the early 1980's were like. The cool thing is that the arcade scenes were filmed in a real arcade, and the scene with the punk rockers show what punk rockers really did look like. They look clownish by today's standard and you might think that no one really looked like that, but I can tell you they did in the 1980's. This movie pretty accurately shows what the teenagers in the 1980's had to worry about, which was not much compared to what teenagers of today have to worry about. Those of us who were teenagers in the 1980's do realize now how awesome the 1980's actually were. This movie displays 1980's teenage angst at it's finest!

Scott LeBrun Although I was of the right age to have gotten caught up in the video game fever of the early 1980s, somehow this silly, obnoxious, but entertaining film managed to escape my notice (I wasn't as into movies as I am now). What it does best is capturing a fad & era on film; it's very much a snapshot of the time. It's also good natured raunch; there's a lot of very attractive young ladies on hand who do show us the goods. I would agree that there isn't much finer in life than sexy young gals jiggling and shaking while totally getting into the playing of the games. Of course, a youth oriented sex comedy of the time isn't complete without an antagonist, and Joe Don Baker fills that bill admirably. Having also starred for director Greydon Clark in the slasher spoof "Wacko", he's an uptight citizen & businessman named Joseph Rutter, who schemes to shut down a popular video arcade, convinced that it's a den of depravity. Opposing him are the amiable operator of the arcade, Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis) and master video game player Jonathan Andrew McDorfus (Jim Greenleaf), while ultimately assisting him is weirdo King Vidiot (Jonathan Gries), who's already constantly butting heads with Jefferson. And the two who are more of a hindrance than a help are Rutter's two moron nephews, Arnie (John Diehl) and Max (John Voldstad). You get a lot of flash with this one, folks: the colours just leap off the screen. This is exceptionally loud 'n' lively stuff, maybe too much so at times, but in the end the movie's hard not to like, even as subtlety is in short supply. The characters are genuinely entertaining, especially scene stealer Gries. Get a load of Diehl's wardrobe, as well. The pop songs are all catchy, and Clark keeps the movie running smoothly along, with episodes such as dweeb / new arcade employee Eugene Groebe (Leif Green) turning on Rutter's neglected wife. Among the lovely ladies are perky Corinne Bohrer as Rutter's daughter Patsy, Playboy Playmates Kym Malin and Lynda Wiesmeier, and B movie babe Becky LeBeau. All in all, "Joysticks" (which never passes up an opportunity for a sexual joke), is irresistibly cheesy and thoroughly unpretentious stuff. Seven out of 10.

Woodyanders I can't believe all the harsh reviews this movie gets. I think it's a true work of deliciously dreadful 80's trash exploitation movie art that totally nails the rampant hedonism and stupidity of adolescence with uncanny accuracy. All the kids want to do in this film are play video games or make out. They have no ambitions or aspirations towards doing anything meaningful or significant with their lives. They just wanna party and have fun. Come on, people, that's exactly what being a teenager is all about! And boy does "Joysticks" peg this blithely moronic mindset with spot-on incisiveness and authenticity. This movie reaches its true moment of absolute cinematic greatness during the legendary strip video sequence. When the camera pans down to show the hot chick's ample breasts jiggling up and down in extreme eye-popping close-up as she plays the video game those beauteous bouncing boobs perform a majestic ballet that just screams "gleefully mindless sleazy entertainment!" Yeah, the acting stinks, the plot's a paper-thin joke, the humor is crude and sophomoric, the production values are strictly rock bottom, and the 80's slang, clothes, and hairstyles now are hopelessly dated and laughable at this point in time, but "Joysticks" nonetheless reigns supreme as a genuine tacky no-brainer dreck artifact of its era.