Real Genius (1985)

As a follow-up to her beloved '80's cult class Valley Girl, director Martha Coolidge delivered another beloved cult classic two years later with this science-based (sort of) campus comedy starring the late, great Val Kilmer in one of his earliest roles as the wisecracking titular genius Chris Knight.  Knight has been tasked with building a laser by his duplicitous professor (William Atherton) though at least he has help in the form of the latest young genius to be recruited to the fictional Pacific Tech - that would be Mitch Taylor played by Gabriel Jarret (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon) who's definitely in over his head away from his parents for the first time in his life and the ripe young age of 16.  Chris has to show Mitch the ropes, they both learn from each other as they work to build that laser, and hijinks ensue!  

Host & Editor: Geoff Gershon

Editor: Ella Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

Transcript

REAL GENIUS – 1985

Directed by Martha Coolidge

Starring Val Kilmer, Gabriel Jarret, Michelle Mayrink, William Atherton, Robert Prescott, Louis Giambalvo, Ed Lauter, Patti D’Arbanville, Seven Darden, Mark Kamiyama, Deborah Foreman, and Jon Gries

Genre: Smart People Comedy (Audio clip)

This remains a genuinely smart and sweet-natured comedy with a nice message at its core. I believe Chris Knight is the wise-ass hero which Ferris Bueller only ASPIRED to be....he's got a way with the ladies but also a passionate empathy for his fellow nerds. PLUS a unique fashion sense: flannel scarves, novelty T-shirts, and bunny slippers to boot. 😆 And the late, great Val Kilmer (in only his second on-screen role) portrays him with great charm and charisma, as a braniac who's fiercely intelligent and fair-minded, yet relishes pranks and gags and witty throw-away insults like the following...

"This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated." 

Rest assured that Kent had it coming too. :) As played by Robert Prescott, he's the worst case scenario of the smarmy tech nerd who seems to embody our worst nightmares nowadays....no scruples, ruthless, and eager to tear down who questions him or threatens to slow him down. This being the '80's of course, he's visually coded that way to the extreme, sporting not only comically thick glasses but obvious braces as well! Nope director Martha Coolidge (this was her follow-up to the enduring Valley Girl) and co-writers Neal Israel (Bachelor Party) and Pat Proft (Hot Shots) couldn't avoid EVERY comedy trope from that era but at least the braces eventually factor into the plot. 😉

Believe it or not, Kent isn't even the main villain...no THAT would be the opportunistic Professor Hathaway who's shamelessly exploiting these and other students for free labor to make good on developing new technology for a local military defense contractor whose grant money he has basically pocketed for himself. 🤫 And he's played to smarmy perfection by some one I consider to belong on the Mount Rushmore of '80's Villain Actors, alongside William Zabka, Dabney Coleman, and Steven Berkoff. (Willem Dafoe ALMOST made the cut but he also had to play Jesus of Nazareth this same decade which disqualified him. :() Yes I'm referring to William Atherton whose character actually inexplicably hates both dogs AND popcorn. It's a genuinely fun acid turn on his part and even among his more well-known snarky villain roles in Die Hard and Ghostbusters, I still believe that THIS was William Atherton at his dickish best! 

Throw into this mix the younger, gifted Mitch Taylor played sympathetically by Gabriel Jarrett in a somewhat thankless role but still engaging as he's "The New Kid" thrust into this world (the fictitious Pacific Tech). He's pretty much the audience avatar and I'll say this, the dude at the very least knew how to react effectively to all of the wackiness which surrounds him. 🤗 

Coolidge with help from legendary DP Vilmos
 Zsigmond (Close Encounters, Blow Out) fills the frame with clever images like that to not only complement the endlessly quotable dialogue but also to make most of the headier scientific stuff shown and/or discussed on screen more palatable. And this all organically leads to not only a fun, tense climax involving our main protagonists now trying to sabotage the very weapon they inadvertently helped create. It also culminates with one of THE more ingenious visual gags to ever close out a movie like this. 

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film): 

Now BACK to that conclusion….it’s just an all-timer, absolutely brilliant in how it wraps up every thread of the story in both a satisfying and suitably hilarious manner.  There’s really nothing like it and the only real comparison I can even think of is what was rumored to be the ORIGINAL ending to Doctor Strangelove before Kubrick decided to go much darker….I don’t even know if they filmed it, I’m referring to the conclusive pie fight in the War Room.  THIS ending of course is much more hopeful – it’s Chris, Mitch and crew not only delivering Professor Hathaway his comeuppance but declaring their humanity in the most delicious way possible….it comes down to ONE word….POPCORN. (Audio clip) 

It remains one of the all-time best FEEL-GOOD endings and to cap off such an ending, it also helps a great deal to kick off one of THE BEST feel-good pop songs of that era.  Just to set the scene: Lazlo pulls away in his Winnebago, our heroes share some pithy dialogue, dozens of neighborhood kids run head-first into this now 15 to 20 foot mountain of popcorn covering Hathway’s lawn…..slo-mo images of the kids frolicking in the popcorn and the capper…Chris Knight triumphantly munching with a mouth FULL of popcorn – did he really catch all of that in his mouth?  We’ll never know….it’s performed by one of my favorite synth-pop bands of the ‘80’s, Bath England’s OWN Tears of Fears.  Featuring heartfelt vocals from lead singer Roland Orzibal and a bouncy hook thanks to lead singer/co-founder Curt Smith, this song was actually released a few months prior as the third single from their second album “Songs from the Big Chair” so by the time it was featured here, it was ALREADY all over MTV and the radio.  No matter because it remains the PERFECT needle-drop to accompany a PERFECT ending – I’m referring to the enduring pop smash, “Everybody Wants to Rule The World.” (Audio clip) 

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

As stated previously, the director Martha Coolidge – her film previous to this was the spirited teen comedy and previous episode Valley Girl…which is a movie I just love, almost as much as this one.  Well returning from that film is none other than the titular Valley Girl herself, the lovely Deborah Foreman – she was considered a star on the rise at this time but alas, she’s BARELY in this film playing Susan Decker who is the daughter of the lead defense contractor played by Ed Lauter.  She has only two scenes and they ARE quite funny but it’s still a bit unfortunate as she’s just the butt of the joke.  Would it have hurt to have maybe ONE more scene of her maybe developing a romance with Chris Knight, defying her father?  I wouldn’t have minded. (Audio clip) 

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Probably my favorite moment in the film – and possibly the FUNNIEST – occurs about 30 minutes in, it’s also a fun showcase for physical comedy from Jarrett’s Mitch.  And it basically involves that reliable ‘80’s trope: the fish-out-of-water montage, in this case him getting acclimated to campus life.... and yes we see Mitch running to classes, dropping books, observing the quirky behaviors of his fellow students…..clearly he’s struggling. and it’s all set to the mid-tempo synth pop song “I’m Falling” from Sheffield, England’s own The Comsat Angels.  Not a bad song.  (Audio clip) 

Well throughout this montage, we see Mitch going to ONE particular class and finding that each tine he returns, there are fewer and fewer students present…they’re just leaving tape recorders or stereos to record the lecture.  At the end of this montage, we see the incredulous look on his face as he enters this advanced mathematics class devoid of not only ALL of his fellow students but the kicker is that the professor isn't there either - HE just left a tape player broadcasting his lecture. 😆 (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film):

He gets almost all of the funniest lines, he delivers the most heartfelt monologues, he’s the most convincing when delivering the tech-speak, he’s got the best fashion sense…..and wouldn’t you know it, he’s the STAR of this movie so that all checks out.  I’m referring of course to LA-born Val Kilmer who sadly passed away back in April of this year at the age of 65 due to complications relating to pneumonia.  This was only his second performance after a STERLING debut just the year before in another comedy gem….previous episode Top Secret.  (Audio clip) 

And yet believe it or not, his performance in Real Genius would end up being THE LAST full-on comedic performance of his career….well you could probably count his acid turn vs. Robert Downey Jr in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang….but that’s still a more conventional action hero role.  Beside that though, he would keep often keep things more serious in star vehicles as varied as Spartan, The Ghost and the Darkness, and of course previous episode Heat.  He could inhabit a role and make it is own like few could, often resulting in performances with unique mannerisms and vocal inflections like few others.   As far as I’m concerned, his best OVERALL performance – and crazily one which he was NOT nominated for an Oscar for, hell he could have WON – was literally BECOMING Jim Morrison on-screen in The Doors. (Audio clip)  

Of course, what eventually ended his acting career was his tragic inability to use his voice resulting from throat cancer in 2014….he eventually beat the cancer but was never able to speak again.  Though this didn’t prevent him from delivering one of THE most affecting career send-off’s with his final on-screen performance reprising his role as now Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in previous episode Top Gun Maverick…apparently with vocal assistance from his son approximating his voice.  STILL just such as an amazing, affecting scene. (Audio clip) 

And for me, it all started with me seeing THIS movie in theaters….when I was merely ten years old.  I just thought Chris Knight was the COOLEST guy I had ever seen, even cooler than Indiana Jones or Axel Foley if you can believe that.  And since then, I was a season-ticket holder….chances are if Kilmer was listed in the cast, I was seeing that movie in theaters.  From delivering hearty laughs as Nick Rivers to just devouring the screen with charisma as Doc Holliday, he was a genuine movie star who over the past forty years left as much of a lasting impression on me as almost any one else on the big screen.  For delivering what I still consider to be among his Top Five best performances, Val Kilmer is the MVP.  Whether he had his boots on in the end or not, his legacy will endure and I hope that he found peace. (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 5 stars out of 5 

I just ADORE this movie for not only what it has to say but the hysterical manner with which it expresses it – Happy 40th Anniversary to one of my favorite movies of the 1980’s….hell of ALL Time. 

Streaming on Prime Video

And that ends another MORAL IMPERATIVE review!