Thanks to Mike Myers' wonderfully rude, lowbrow humour and his full-bodied understanding of who his character is, Wayne's World proved to be that rare thing: a successful transition of a Saturday Night Live sketch to the big screen. Wayne Campbell (Myers) and his nerdy pal Garth (Dana Carvey) are teens who live at home and have their own low-rent cable-access show in Aurora, Illinios, in which they celebrate their favourite female film stars and heavy-metal bands. When a Chicago TV station smells a potential youth-audience ratings hit, the station's weasely executive (Rob Lowe) tries to co-opt the show--and steal Wayne's new rock 'n' roll girlfriend (Tia Carrere) at the same time. Like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure before it (and the later Detroit Rock City), this is a film that affectionately parodies and celebrates slacker teenage culture. It's also filled with all kinds of knowing spoofs of film conventions, from Wayne talking to the camera (while forbidding other characters to do so) and hilariously self-conscious product placements, to labelling a moment a "Gratuitous Sex Scene". Dumb yet clever--and very funny. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

Wayne's World 2 was a successful follow-up for Wayne and Garth's Adventures, full of the same madcap humour from their TV characters and previous film. Somewhere in the world, there are probably people who don't understand why Mike Myers' eponymous Wayne's World character is funny--feel sorry for them. Granted, the laughs are often cheap and silly, but there's no one who can embody a comic character and riff within that character the way Myers does. Wayne and his pal Garth (Dana Carvey) were fixtures on Saturday Night Live before the unexpected success of Wayne' s World, a movie about what happened when they tried to take their local cable-access citywide. This time, they want to stage Waynestock, a mammoth rock festival in their little Chicago suburb, even as Wayne copes with girlfriend Tia Carrere's interest in record-company exec Christopher Walken. For extra fun, Garth gets involved with the babelicious Kim Basinger. Yes, the humour is scattershot and the plot is lame--but you'll find yourself laughing none the less. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com