Real Genius
Directed by Martha Coolidge, Real Genius follows several bright college students, including Gabriel Jarret’s Mitch Taylor and Val Kilmer’s Chris Knight, as they attempt to finish work on a project involving a cutting-edge laser. Filmmaker Coolidge, working from Neal Israel, Pat Proft, and Peter Torokvei’s screenplay, delivers an exceedingly hit-and-miss comedy that fares especially poorly in its sluggish and oddly meandering first half, as Real Genius, for much of its opening hour, lumbers from sequence to sequence with little thought towards momentum or consistency – with, at least, the picture benefiting rather substantially from the affable work of its uniformly appealing roster of performers. (Kilmer’s loose, freewheeling turn as the somewhat obnoxious protagonist is quite entertaining, to be sure, though it’s William Atherton, cast as a slick and smarmy professor, who ultimately establishes himself as the main attraction here.) It’s only as the movie begins to adopt a more pronounced emphasis on plot that it becomes the entertaining, affable endeavor one might’ve expected, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that the final half hour fares especially well and ensures the whole thing ends on a thoroughly satisfying note (ie that’s a lot of popcorn) – which cements Real Genius‘ place as a mostly watchable yet lamentably erratic piece of work that could (and should) be so much better.
**1/2 out of ****
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