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Back to the Beach

Back to the Beach

Comedy · Music · 1987

Cowabunga! The surfing '60s ride into the new wave as Frankie and Annette star in this hip update of their old-time, good-time beach movies. With special appearances by Bob Denver, Tony Dow, Pee-Wee Herman, Jerry Mathers and other familiar faces. Frankie and Annette grow up and have kids in the midwest. They return to LA to visit their daughter who is shacked up with her boyfriend and tries to hide the fact. They begin to have marriage problems when Frankie runs into Connie, who has erected a shrine to him in her night club. Their punk son has joined up with the local surf toughs, and things all come to a head when the toughs challenge the good guys to a surfing duel

Movie details

Back to the Beach

“All killer...no filler!!”

1987 Comedy · Music 1h 32m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

5.9 / 10

3.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

74 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

62 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

5.9 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Cowabunga! The surfing '60s ride into the new wave as Frankie and Annette star in this hip update of their old-time, good-time beach movies. With special appearances by Bob Denver, Tony Dow, Pee-Wee Herman, Jerry Mathers and other familiar faces. Frankie and Annette grow up and have kids in the midwest. They return to LA to visit their daughter who is shacked up with her boyfriend and tries to hide the fact. They begin to have marriage problems when Frankie runs into Connie, who has erected a shrine to him in her night club. Their punk son has joined up with the local surf toughs, and things all come to a head when the toughs challenge the good guys to a surfing duel

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Back to the Beach?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Lyndall Hobbs

Written by

James Komack · Bill L. Norton · Bruce Kirschbaum · Peter Krikes

Frankie Avalon

Frankie Avalon

Annette's Husband

Annette Funicello

Annette Funicello

Annette

Lori Loughlin

Lori Loughlin

Sandi

Tommy Hinkley

Tommy Hinkley

Michael

Demian Slade

Demian Slade

Bobby

J

Joe Holland

Zed

John Calvin

John Calvin

Troy

Court is in session

Put Back to the Beach on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Popcorn Loyalist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.