Mad Dog Movie Reviews

Real Genius (1985)

(5 Mad Dogs)

Back in the 80’s it was all about Science. It was Mr. Wizard on my TV before school. It was Thomas Dolby or Oingo Boingo on my radio. Or it was any of the teen-science movies like Weird Science, War Games, Manhattan Project, Project X or Real Genius. We seemed to be transfixed to science.

It was all good to me but nothing is quite like Real Genius.

This movie is about Chris Knight (Val Kilmer in one o his few enjoyable movies) who is a genius working on a laser for his Professor (William Atherton, a that guy who always plays an asshole) but is stuck so his professor brings in some help in the form of young Mitch (the ugliest man in the world). Hi-jinks ensue such as their dorm’s floor turning into ice, a car ending up in the room of their rival and a little popcorn celebration with the neighborhood kids at the end of the movie which is used as payback for our heroes being tricked into creating a weapon for the army without their knowledge.

This movie is a classic and it holds up extremely well. Very entertaining and stupid at the same time that is only short on boobies which would have put it up in the ranks of Citizen Kane on the AFI list of 100 great movies. Go out and buy this movie because you can never have enough comedies in your DVD collection.