Review of Real Genius (1985) by Mat P — 28 Aug 2007

A fairly average campus comedy in the vein of Revenge of The Nerds, the difference being that there are only nerds in this film. Interestingly all these geniuses seem to spend the bulk of their time partying or using their gifts to think of impressive ways to slack off.

I was drawn in by the prospect of Val Kilmer doing a full comedy, but he was actually one of the more disappointing elements with only occasional flashes of his later talent. I can see why his mix of charm and arrogance may have caught the attention of Tony Scott for Top Gun, but he was a disappointment here. The lead (whom I'd assumed would be Kilmer), Gabriel Jarret was also fairly unengaging and his character went through the motions of the one geek who wants to study. The standout actor was the all too infrequently cast William Atherton, marvellous as a slightly cooler Walter Peck clone who has his students building a government laser for his own gain. He relishes the evil in his role with limited screen time and its always a pleasure to see his character's suffer.

Also the presence of Michelle Meyrink from "Revenge of The Nerds" and "Valley Girl" is a big plus, always playing a dorky character and always inexplicably hot - especially in her Daisy Duke shorts at the end of this film!

There are some interesting ideas in here, if the message is a little mixed. Val Kilmer seems to spend the first hour of the film dissuading and distracting the main character from study, only to finally succeed in convincing him to chill out then being convinced to start working hard himself by the very character he's been convincing. The net result of Kilmer and co's efforts turns out to be a raygun that can neutralise human targets from space which seems to suggest that studying hard could result in negative things. I suppose this is a moral message to any would be scientists that you could grow up to be like the guys who created the neutron bomb and such.

The film has one too many montages and the montages themselves run for far too long and are quite dull and repetative, without anything particularly fun occuring.

Also this is one of those films about geniuses where no real genius is ever displayed, it's all talk of "He's the cleverest man alive" or "He's more clever than you and I put together", but we never see this in action other than for pranks and pratfalls. There is some inventiveness here, like the dorm turned into an ice rink, or the popcorn filled house. I think the high point is when Kilmer's gang place a receiver on an enemies braces and start talking to him as if they are Jesus ("Stop playing with yourself etc").

Ultimately, this is quite a pleasant and enjoyable film, just nowhere near funny enough to be a great comedy and nowhere near rude enough to match it's chronological peers for gross out pleasure.