The movie Real Genius aims to depict a scenario where a kid named Mitch Taylor, played by Gabe Jarret, is recruited by Professor Hathaway, played by William Atherton, to attend California Technical Institute at the age of fifteen. While at this high-tech school he meets many brilliant minds such as Chris Knight, played by Val Kilmer. When Mitch arrives at the school he is put on Professor Hathaway’s personal research team who is working on developing a five-megawatt laser. Real Genius focuses on Mitch and Chris as they learn to get along with each other and break their social molds.
There are many scenes in Real Genius where stereotypical college life is blatantly obvious. In one scene where Mitch and Chris are working in the lab, Chris moves the target for the laser and instead replaces it with a mirror. When the laser is fired, the resulting beam creates a long laser trail that leads to a large party in one of the academic buildings. The party features girls in bathing suits and everyone is drinking out of red cups, you have seen movies. During the party Chris leaves to talk to a couple of girls and Mitch is left alone to enjoy the party. Midway through the scene and Mitch finds his friend Jordan, played by Michelle Meyrink, coming up to him with an oxygen tank and a rebreather. She asks him if he wants to help her test it any they head to the pool together. The two of them start working and it quickly turns into them splashing and having a good time at the party. At the end of the scene everything goes downhill when Professor Hathaway is told about the party and goes to reprimand Chris and Mitch. He stops the music and orders the two of them to go back to the lab and continue to work until they come up with a solution to their laser problem. Another scene that shows off the intellectual side of this film is in the finale. When the crew finds out that the laser they are developing is for some type of military use, they rush back to the lab only to find everything gone. Chris and mitch along with their friends devise a plan to stop Professor Hathaway from making use of this weapon as well as getting a little bit of revenge for the way they had been treated. The team of students manage to pose as air force engineers and somehow manage to get inside of an air force base to solidify their fears of wat the laser was meant to be used for. The students, namely Chris and Mitch, then find their opportunity to sabotage the project that Professor Hathaway was hiding from them from the beginning. With the use of some old-fashioned technology and computer parts Chris and Mitch, along with some help from their friends back at Cal Tech, manage to decrypt the coordinates for the laser and input their own. Without giving too much away, it would who of me to not say that they manage to change the target of the laser and pull an impressive stunt involving something like one hundred seventy thousand cubic feet of popcorn. Real Genius does a spectacular job at highlighting some of the common problems and hurtles students face when going off to college for the first time. Whether they are start when they are fifteen like Mitch, or when they are eighteen like everyone else, the struggles presented in this film are all the same. In the movie, Mitch must make new friends and find his niche in this new and diverse school. In the beginning, he is bullied by the other students and ultimately calls his mother wanting to go home, but after overcoming his fears with the help of Chris Knight he manages to study hard and finish the laser project. The film is rated PG and for some good reasons. Overall the movie does not toe the line as crude or inappropriate for children, but there are some scenes where it can be more suggestive than parents bargain for. There are many references to phallic things such as one scene where Chris meets a girl in Professor Hathaway’s home and attempts at flirting with her. She replies to his attempts by asking, “Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?” and proceeds to leave after that dialogue. Other scenes in the film feature Chris making crude, but oddly scientific, jokes toward the other characters in the movie. It is obvious that many more of his jokes hold cruder undertones, but all in all they can only be picked out with a dirty mind. I personally feel as though the rating given to this movie is well suited for the target audience. The intended audience for the film Real Genius is those teenagers in high school and/or college. Since the film appeals to the crazy and exciting idea of college using borderline crude humor comingled with intellectual puns and clever word play, it is no wonder they went for a younger audience. Real Genius also likes to play on the intellectual aspect of higher education, making it appealing to those already in college or those parents or adults looking for something to bring back the nostalgia of their college years. It is easy to see how a much younger audience, those below the age for high or junior high, could be turned off from a movie of this genre. Overall the film Real Genius is a great movie that appeals to wide array of audiences from diverse areas. It appeals to the high school and college audiences as well as the adult audiences. The film features many high dollar actors and high dollar comedy. Real Genius takes the concept of a young genius and the connect of coming to a new school and finding your place and blends it into something that is amazingly funny and a fully entertaining experience for the audience. I would give this film the highest rating possible if I could because the nuance in the jokes coupled with the intellectual science creates an amazing hybrid of funny and smart. Real Genius is all in all a wonderful movie to watch and enjoy. - William Romeo |
Real Genius does a spectacular job at highlighting some of the common problems and hurtles students face when going off to college for the first time. Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)
Mitch Taylor (Gabe Jarrett)
Prof. Hathaway (William Atherton)
“Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?” |