Metacritic reviews

Something like a sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The characters are different, but the perspective on teen-age Americana, West Coast-style, is very much the same. This time around, though, the material is less funny.

For all the nice turns, this movie can't decide whether to focus on undergraduate fun and fantasy or the tensions of the workaday world. As a result, the film fails to deliver its promised exploration of the last week of summer, when some people find themselves with no way to turn back, and no place to look forward to. [01 Oct 1984, p.B3]

It’s not that funny, and feels like a ripoff of Animal House. Either way, The Wild Life is like the contractually obligated Crowe script that time forgot, his undisciplined id, playing with cheap thrills before he got a chance to express himself like a human storyteller in 1989.

Penn is a real talent, but it seems downright unfair to cast him in a part designed to compete with the memory of his brother Sean's role in Fast Times. This is one for the kids; had it tried harder, it could have been one for everyone. [08 Oct 1984, p.89]

This movie is a compendium of every element in every inane teenage movie you've ever seen. The only reason anyone would watch it would be if they were being punished or were suffering from a heretofore incurable case of insomnia.

Movies like The Wild Life are softcore porn comics for teenyboppers. It's hard to believe teenagers are really as easily entertained as the makers of this movie seem to expect them to be. What ever happened to introspection and identity crises? [01 Oct 1984, p.C7]