Review of Flight of the Navigator (1986) by Kendall I — 26 Mar 2013

I used to love this movie in my childhood, but now that I'm older, I notice how cheesy it really is at times. It still fills me with wonder, but some of the respect I had for it is lost.

PLOT:12-year old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) is just a normal kid. He has a mom (Veronica Cartwright), a dad (Cliff De Young), and a younger brother. One July 4th, 1978, he goes out to find his brother in the woods. However, he falls in a ditch and passes out. He doesn't realize it, but he doesn't wake up until eight years later. The weirdest part about it is that he's still 12-years old. After a big confusion, he's reunited with his family but taken to an institution for study. After a bit of experiments, the scientists find out he has more unknown knowledge stored in his head, such as star charts from an undiscovered galaxy! Not to mention, David is hearing voices. One night, these voices call him to go somewhere, and he finds himself in a strange flying saucer with a robot named Max (Paul Reubens), who may have details on his long journey. It's a great plot executed decently.

ACTING:The acting in here is okay. The performances overall are hit-or-miss. Joey Cramer did a pretty sucky job as the young David Freeman, but I believe it was due to his age. Paul Reubens does a pretty good job as Max, putting his usual style into the voice. The other shiners would be Cliff De Young as Bill Freeman, Veronica Cartwright as Helen Freeman, Matt Adler as older Jeff Freeman, and Sarah Jessica Parker as Carolyn McAdams.

SCORE:The score in this movie is pretty cool. It's mysterious and has a kind of wonder, conducted by the well-known Alan Silvestri. It was pretty cool.

EFFECTS:The effects were pretty great for their time. I still like them. The computer effects used for the spaceships many perks are still pretty cool, and the puppetry effects for the creatures are pretty neat. These effects have aged over time, but they still are neat to look at nowadays.

OTHER CONTENT:This movie has its fair share of pros and cons. This used to be one of my favorites when I was real young, but it's kind of lost its luster to me now. It still fills me with a bit of wonder and nostalgia from the old days, plus it has charm and some good humor to boot. However, this movie is terribly cheesy and has some major problems with plot execution. The problem I mainly have with it is that when David passes out, he doesn't really just pass out. He falls off into the ditch, and he gets right back up. He doesn't lay there for a minute or anything; he just gets back up in 5 seconds. That makes everything a little jumbled and hard-to-follow. This added to the cheesiness and the hit-or-miss acting bring the good idea down.

OVERALL,an okay movie with a great plot, okay performances, cool Silvestri score, great effects for the time period, a feeliing of wonder, nostalgia, charm, and some good humor, but it's cheesy with some hit-or-miss acting and major execution problems.