Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I was surprised that some did not enjoy this 'classic' 80's film-- I for one have to disagree. First thing that annoyed me is that Christopher Collet is the 'star' of this film, yet IMB gives John Lithgow top billing-- Really? This is unacceptable. This is a film about a young man (Paul) who is brilliant but comes from a broken family with an absentee father and feels protective of the person who cares for him-- his mother! John Lithgow comes into the story line secondary to Paul. The most enduring character is the lead character Christopher Collet-- who, out of lack of any other worthy extra curricular activity, decides (after meeting the man who wants to date his mother) to build a '1st Place' nuclear bomb (science project) with plutonium absconded from a lab where mom's new boyfriend works (a boyfriend Paul doesn't particularly respect) -- shades of 'The Graduate'. Any political correctness about the 'war- mongering lab' comes from Paul's girlfriend (Elizabeth) who is much more so an activist than Paul. The film is a great example of 1980's film genre-- shades of 'War Games', 'Ferris Bueller', etc. The film conveys to me a story about a sharp young man who is struggling to find himself after his brilliant (architect-father) and mother have separated. Without continuing to ruin the film for those that haven't seen it: I say watch it-- it's excellent! If you missed out on the 1980's, well, I am so sorry for you! I saw it when it came out in 1986 and have always loved it, especially now, when I desire an '80's' mood. Enjoy this film for what it is and immerse yourself in the public consciousness of a bygone era!

This is the third of the four feature films directed by Marshall Brickman. It is ironic that the title is THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, because Brickman wrote Woody Allen's films MANHATTAN (1979, see my review) and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY. Now, that's what I call throwing a name around! In this film, in order to escape Central Park perhaps, the location is shifted to Ithaca, New York, the location of Cornell University. They have lots of scientists there, but sshhhhh, I am telling you that only on a need to know basis and you must keep it to yourself. There are lots of FBI men around and they have guns. Brickman's first film was SIMON (1980, see my review), which was not entirely successful, and his second was LOVESICK (1983, see my review), which was an excellent romantic comedy. This film moves into new territory, and by that I do not just mean Brickman has temporarily migrated upstate. The film stars the 18 year-old Christopher Collet as a science prodigy who decides to build a small atomic bomb in order to try to win first prize at the National Science Fair. John Lithgow is excellent as the nuclear scientist who romantically befriends Collet's divorced mother (Jill Eikenberry with her bright blue eyes, and by the way you may have noticed that for at least three decades now all women in American movies are divorced) and from whom Collet steals the necessary plutonium. He has a very jolly girlfriend played by the 20 year-old Cynthia Nixon (no relation apparently to Tricky Dick), who helps him sneak out of the top secret lab. The film is very amusing and Brickman, who co-wrote the film, has added several very punchy comedic lines of dialogue, as one would expect from a Woody Allen author. Brickman does an excellent job of directing, and this film really is a good one. Naturally, the atomic bomb's unprimed detonation mechanism is accidentally set on timer by 'a spontaneous neutron emission'. Those neutrons really never could control themselves. Can the bomb be defused before it destroys 'New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada' as a worried Lieutenant Colonel puts it while his men brandish their sniper rifles and machine guns? It is all good fun and also rather hair-raising. Also, there's a message in there somewhere.

Here's a textbook example of all the post-'ET' rip-offs pitting bright teenagers against bad grown-ups, in this case packaged like an updated manual of mid-1980s commercial movie-making clichés. It's all here: the playful young smart-aleck prodigy (with attractive single mother and sexually active girlfriend); the wicked agents of federal bureaucracy; the solitary, sympathetic adult (as usual, a scientist); lots of distracting high-tech hardware; and a topical message. In more talented hands all these familiar ingredients might at least have been assembled with some style, but the comedy (?) plot (about the whiz-kid and his home built nuclear device) includes more lapses in logic, more contrived cleverness, and more implausible plot twists than even a teenage fantasy of this sort can support. Rule of thumb: never trust a movie that assumes its audience is less intelligent than the characters on screen.

I remember watching this movie in the 80s, and thinking it was a good film. There was, however, one major problem that I had with the film - the fact that the main protagonist seems to be a dummy when it comes to anything other than science. Forgetting about the fact that Paul, one of the main characters, essentially exposed a bunch of people to high- grade plutonium (no mention about any medical crisis for all the people around Paul after the happy ending), the kicker comes when he's finally confronted in a hotel in New York by John Lithgow and a bevy of military men who would like nothing more than to lock him away for a long time. Paul's nonchalance comes out in the exchange, "They can't do anything to me." "Why not?" "Because I'm underage." HUH? You're smart enough to build a freaking nuclear bomb by yourself, including smart enough to know where to get some explosive material needed to blow the bomb up. You're also smart enough to have fooled a high-security system with a bunch of frisbees and a helpful girlfriend in order to get the plutonium (and smart enough to temporarily cover your tracks by inserting shampoo into the jar so it's not immediately noticed as missing). But what in the world makes you think that they'll let you go because "I'm underage?" I suppose the script writer needed to show a little naiveté - after all, if Paul knew the full gravity of what he was doing, he might not have done something as reckless as he did. Instead, he might just have gone ahead with an expose without needing to win first prize at a science contest.