What is it about the 80s that provokes such unwavering nostalgia? With Hollywood throwing back with films such as The Rocker and Hot Tub Time Machine, there appears to be a perfectly renewable audience for movies that channel boomboxes, Farrah hair and Back to the Future. Forget wind-turbines, if only we could find a way to fuel society with good will for the 1980s.

Take Me Home Tonight panders to the Brat Pack crowd with a two decade old tale of teenage angst and parental disapproval, finding a Apatow-esque parallel in its 80s setting. Topher Grace stars as Matt Franklin, an aimless graduate who spends most of his time behind the counter of a video store. Hiding out of embarrassed from his high-school-crush-turned-successful-banking-intern (Teresa Palmer), Franklin pretends to be employed by Goldman Sachs – a lie which leads to an invitation to the Labor Day reunion party being held by Matt’s sister Wendy’s (Anna Faris) boyfriend. Stealing a car to better fit his fabrication, Matt and Wendy take unemployed friend Barry Nathan (Dan Fogler) along for a night they will likely never forget.

Aside from the odd humorous reference to the planet’s favourite decade – there is a DeLorean parked at the party and the film’s title is a constellation of assorted 80s movie fonts – Take Me Home Tonight has very little to offer. Boasting forgettable performances from all and sundry, the apparent effort put into making the movie is on a par with the nonchalance that encapsulated the film’s practically non-existent marketing campaign. Consequently, the finished film is barely worth the investigation, let alone the price of admission.

Thoroughly content with itself, the script bares little wit and innovation, leaving the film to rely on a central romance that is staid at best. With Grace sleepwalking the role he perfected through seven seasons of That 70’s Show and Anna Faris underperforming even by her own standards, the recent tradition of shoe-horning an overweight scapegoat into proceedings is as insufficient as ever a method of bolstering an otherwise underwhelming cast of characters. Dan Fogler is no Jack Black/Zach Galifanakis/Jonah Hill and his Barry Nathan quickly exhausts his idiotic routine of immature nut-kicking and general abhorrentness.

In true gender equality, the film’s women are as uninteresting as its empty men. Starring alongside Faris are I Am Number Four’s Teresa Palmer – who appears to be as new to smiling as Kristen Stewart – and a blink-and-you’ll-miss it turn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Michelle Trachenberg, in all her face-licking glory. As romance gives way to plot contrivance, you could be forgiven for mistaking either for someone else.

As the supporting characters are left to snort cocaine and – in one of the film’s only memorable scene – drool while crying, our young lovers find a nearby trampoline on which to play a tired game of truth or dare and, because it was cute in (500) Days of Summer, play the HILARIOUS penis game. It really is as uninspired as that, with Matt’s lie inevitably coming back to haunt him with timeable precision. Throw in some dubious morality – the grand theft auto goes bafflingly unpunished stupidity is often mistaken for courage – and a jarringly buxom sex-scene and you have Take Me Home Tonight, a by the numbers romantic comedy completely lacking in either romance or comedy.

If you are the type of person who longs to have been alive in the 80s, where you could “do it” on a trampoline and solve all of life’s problems by riding a giant metal ball into a swimming pool, then Take Me Home Tonight is for you. Should you, however, prefer a little more substance with your dated style, perhaps return to the source for your 80s nostalgia – your already extensive DVD collection.

Take me home tonight is out now!

[Rating:1/5]