Review of Flight of the Navigator (1986) by Christopher A — 28 Aug 2008
It's been a long while since I watched Flight of the Navigator, one of my favourite films as a young boy. It was recently given out free ( yes! free! ) by The Daily Mail (booooo!).
Flight of the Navigator had an excellent premise. A young boy while out in the woods looking for his brother is somehow transported eight years into the future only to find his family old and grey and his brother almost twenty years old.
It soon transpires that he has been whisked off into space by a strange alien creature so that their planet can investigate human beings.
As a young boy you can imagine how that premise would interest you and I would always wonder what I would do in that situation. Its still pretty good today and I can see it still being relevant to today's youth.
The SFX are very good as well for 1986. The spacecraft is well filmed and animated and when the stairs suddenly come out of nowhere you wonder how they managed it back then with just a Spectrum!
The young boy in the film wasn't too annoying or 'acting school' - so he didn't grate. A young Sarah Jessica Parker also turns up in the film strangely enough. Paul Reubens, who voices the alien computer was very good - but then you remember his history with young boys and it kind of puts you off a bit!
One thing that was strange about the film was how bad NASA came off. I wonder if they gave the producers permission to use their name in the film as they came across really badly.
Flight of the Navigator is still a good watch over twenty years later and I was left feeling pleased with myself for having watched it again.
This review of Flight of the Navigator (1986) was written by Christopher A on 28 Aug 2008.
Flight of the Navigator has generally received positive reviews.
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