Walter Gibson (John Cusack) and best friend Lance (Anthony Edwards) are graduating high school. He wonders if his best days are over. Gib is floundering in a northeastern college. Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) in his English class is told by the professor to loosen up. Gib lures her to tutor him but she is completely annoyed by him. Lance is in college in California and he sends him a picture of the Sure Thing (Nicollette Sheridan). Gib gets a ride share with Gary Cooper (Tim Robbins) and Mary Ann Webster (Lisa Jane Persky) but Alison is also in the car on her way to see her boyfriend. Gib and Alison keep fighting and Gary abandons them on the side of the road.This is a traditional rom-com. It's a bit slow at times but in general, the movie works because John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga have good chemistry together. It's not very original. Zuniga is uptight and Cusack is the wild one. They are fire and ice. Of course, they are going to end up together. Rob Reiner shows some skills but also some deficiencies. The movie needs to be quicker and snappier.

John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga spend their time together hitchhiking across country to California in director Rob Reiner's romantic, teen comedy "The Sure Thing," a quasi-"It Happened One Night." Walter 'Gib' Gibson (John Cusack of "Sixteen Candles") and his best friend Lance (Anthony Edwards of "Top Gun") graduate from high school and head off to opposite ends of the nation to attend college. Eventually, Lance sets Walter up with a hot babe (Nicollette Sheridan) but he has no means of transportation. At the same time, Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) needs a ride to California during the Christmas break to visit her bespectacled boyfriend Jason (Boyd Gaines) who is in for a surprise. Inevitably, the two wind up together in the same car, a Volkswagon station wagon driven by Gary Cooper (Tim Robbins) and his girlfriend. Our hero and heroine don't last long with Gary and his girlfriend after she bares her breasts during the ride and flaunts them to another vehicle whose occupants had mooned them. After the cops cite Gary for her promiscuous behavior, he leaves Gib and the girl on the roadside and they have to thumb a ride to get to the land of sun and fun. Harmless fun from start to finish with nothing heavy in between and dreamy Nicollette Sheridan as the eponymous babe in her cinematic debut, "The Sure Thing" qualifies as a sure thing. Nobody—at least guys—will forget Nicollette's first scene when she sprawls out on the beach and oils up her lithe body as the waves crash behind her. According to Reiner, he was so nervous that he didn't show up for this scene and let his director of photography lense it. Lots of hit music tunes enliven this sweet little comedy that Rob Reiner directs. For the record, Henry Wrinkler produced "The Sure Thing."

What differs "The Sure Thing" from the other romantic comedies from the mid 1980's is that this one succeeds in holding up rather superbly. Sure the story is not very original as it follows up in the annals of the most common genre in the Hollywood industry, the classic road movie. As what you'd expect the character/s travel across the country and as they tour one landmark to another, they usually embark on a quest of self-discovery and awareness of who they are whether good or bad. Lucky for our protagonists played by John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga their cross country trip sparks positive outlooks for the both of them. The young couple as we get to know them and understand them grow progressively as the film rolls on as they overcome their own perspectives of what they expect in love and also try to expunge all the negative feelings each one had for each other when we first meet them. It's a misnomer into thinking this is a traditional Brat Pack teenage sex comedy. An abundance of these films have a reputation of over-doing it with their lustful scenes. Sure "The Sure Thing" features some lust, mostly from Nicolette Sheridan, but the lust pretty much spoofs itself. And the love fantasies are just mere illusions of Cusack's definition of love."The Sure Thing" introduced us to both John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. But what irks me was where it took them after that. Sure after playing youth-oriented roles during the 1980's, the 1990's is where Cusack's career really took off as went on to a successful career in the movie industry. It was a shame that Daphne didn't have that boost like John did. She was very effective in this pivotal role for her, and it seems she had a natural flair for comedy. The chemistry between these two couple was absolutely sublime as they played each other off very well. Zuniga was flawless as the brainy, but uptight Alison and Cusack was incredible as the laid-back loner type who does have magnetic good looks that attracts women. Sure he's intelligent and witty and can be approachable, he just doesn't have the ability to make an impact towards women.Even though some things are dated like the clothes and hairstyles and whatnot, but it still a charming film that still can be quite appealing even to this day. Sure the music is still put in the 1980's vacuum that hasn't escaped to the modern day spectrum, but it does everything it can to make it feel like it's being viewed to our time. Also look out for Oscar nominee Tim Robbins and Anthony Edwards in low-key but effective performances.

For the first half hour or so this movie comes across as little more than a typically sophomoric and lame comedy about a guy who's looking for action with a girl - and it wasn't even outrageous enough to be truly funny. Gib (John Cusack) has just graduated from high school and gone on to an unnamed Ivy League school. He's frustrated by his lack of success with girls, and by his inability to get the attention of his classmate Alison (Daphne Zuniga.) Then out of the blue he gets invited by an old high school buddy to come to California for Christmas where his buddy will set him up with a "sure thing." To that point there was nothing particularly special about this movie, nothing noteworthy, nothing even especially humorous. But then, the road trip begins, and somehow it all begins to fit together.True - you see the end coming almost from the beginning. Gib and Alison have to end up together. That's the whole point of a movie like this. The question is going to be how they end up together. And that actually became a very enjoyable and at times funny story. It turns out that Alison is also going to California for the holidays to visit her boyfriend, and against their wills they end up having to travel together and through a series of misadventures they fall for each other. In fact, I think one of the truly "sweetest" scenes I've ever come across in a movie is the scene in which Alison and Gib wake up with him holding her in his arms after they innocently shared a bed on the trip. She knows that this is innocent, that nothing happened, and simply enjoys the feeling of being held; he wakes up and immediately starts to assure her that nothing happened, that he hadn't tried anything. In a way that was the central scene of the movie, as their feelings for each other are defined at that moment. In addition to an enjoyable story, I thought this was also notable for a look at some fairly well known performers early in their career. Here, I think especially of Anthony Edwards and Nicolette Sheridan. In all honesty, both were unrecognizable as, respectively, Gib's high school buddy Lance and the "sure thing" Lance has set Gib up with in California. Edwards was quite good in the role, while Sheridan didn't have a lot to do except look hot - and she pulled that off quite well!Overall, this is predictable, it's formulaic, it's altogether unoriginal - and in spite of all that, this movie really does grow on you, in the same way that Gib and Alison grow on each other. The development of their feelings for each other really is fun to watch, and you really do feel a sense of satisfaction as their kiss at the end of the movie signifies that they've arrived at the destination fate intended for them.This is a fun movie to spend some time with. 6/10