( EW.com ) -- There are deep-dish '80s nostalgia movies , like `` Adventureland '' and `` Hot Tub Time Machine . '' Then there 's `` Take Me Home Tonight , '' which duplicates the car crashes , drug jokes , all-night-long plot twists , and robot hip-hop dance moves of low-rent '80s party flicks with such casual fidelity that you may ask : Why not just watch `` Losin ' It , '' `` Bachelor Party '' or `` License to Drive '' instead ? I ca n't claim that `` Take Me Home Tonight , '' set in the summer of 1988 , is much better than -- or different from -- the real ( cheesy ) thing , but it does possess a certain backward-glancing innocent appeal . Topher Grace , as an MIT grad who has become the world 's most overqualified L.A. video-store clerk , looks longer and leaner than before , and he 's got a new confidence , too . Review : More about movies on EW.com . He spends the film crashing beer bashes and pretending to be a big deal at Goldman Sachs , all to woo Teresa Palmer , who 's like Kristen Stewart minus the storm-cloud moodiness . The more he lies , the faster he talks , but that 's his rite of passage . ( Any wuss can be sincere . ) He also has to look after his pudgy-loser-sidekick buddy , played by Dan Fogler , who bounces off the walls like Jack Black and also evokes the smarmy-cute Curtis Armstrong from Risky Business . EW.com : More movie reviews on EW.com . It gives you a jolt to recall , in this age of geek chic , that being unhip was once truly unhip . EW.com rating : B . Release date : March 4 , 2011 . Rated : R. Starring : Topher Grace . See the original article on EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2010 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
` ` Take Me Home ' '' stars Maggie Smith as an MIT grad . Movie , set in the summer of 1969 , is n't much different from the real ( cheesy ) thing . But it possess a certain backward - glancing innocent appeal .