The humor is relentlessly cruel, smug, and disconnected from any sense of how human beings might behave in similar situations.
Real Genius
Who ELSE can turn lasers into light shows, aircraft into armchairs, and high-tech into hijinks?
1985 · 1h 46m · PG
Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction
Directed by
Martha Coolidge
Overview
Chris is the top brain who just wants to party, Mitch is the 15-year-old college wiz kid. Supposedly hard at work on a lab project with a mysterious deadline, they still find time to use their genius to discover new ways to have fun.
Director and cast
- Martha Coolidge Director
- Val Kilmer as Chris Knight
- Gabriel Jarret as Mitch Taylor
- Michelle Meyrink as Jordan Cochran
- William Atherton as Prof. Jerry Hathaway
- Jon Gries as Lazlo Hollyfeld
- Deborah Foreman as Susan Decker
- Dean Devlin as Milton
- Stacy Peralta as Shuttle Pilot
- Patti D'Arbanville as Sherry Nugil
- Louis Giambalvo as Maj. Carnagle
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
It does make you wonder if the drive of the US education system is ultimately to develop better weapons of mass-destruction, though Coolidge's movie is too hazily good-natured to capitalise on the tougher aspects of the material.
What the film needs, instead of these familiar teen-movie trappings, is a cleverness and eccentricity to match that of its characters. For the most part, these are qualities that it lacks.
Real Genius contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it.
What lifts the production above the run-of-the-mill is swift direction by Martha Coolidge, who has a firm grasp over the manic material.
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