Juguete mortal

Not quite understanding the bad reviews here. Going in it's easy to see immediately that this movie was going to be flippant and a bit of a fairy tale. How can anyone take it seriously? Instead, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

This movie is basically a series of unlikely events strung together. Can they happen, sure but probably in another dimension. But still, I found this film a guilty pleasure. It's best to just put your mind on hold for a bit and just have fun.

On a side note, I really miss the 80's version of John Lithgow. He is such a great actor and back then he was at his prime.

My review was written in May 1986 after a screening at the Cannes Film Festival Market.

Marshall Brickman's "The Manhattan Project" is a warm, comedy-laced doomsday story which packs plenty of entertainment for summer audiences, but falls short of its potential as a thriller.

Topical premise has 16-year-old student Paul Stevens (Christopher Collet) tumbling to the fact that the new scientist in town, Dr. Mathewson (John Lithgow) is working with plutonium in what fronts as a pharmaceutical research installation. While Mathewson is romancing Stevens' mom (Jill Eikenberry) -the husband having split years ago -the genius kid is plotting with his helpful girlfriend Jenny (Cynthia Nixon) to steal a canister of plutonium and build an atomic bomb. Their goal: to expose the danger of the secret nuclear plant placed in their community in the strongest possible terms.

Using clever one-liners and many humorous situations (particularly when Lithgow is clumsily coming on to Eikenberry early in the film), Brickman manages successfully to sugarcoat the story's serious message concerning the ongoing folly of arms buildup and reliance upon nuclear deterrence for security. What keeps the film from being a thriller is his matter-of-fact direction, extremely sluggish in many scenes early on. Only a very interesting "Rififi ''-style silent (background sound only) reel in which the hero steals the plutonium from the well-secured lab is strong enough to keep interest from wandering. Fortunately, later situations regain the story's momentum and lead to a rousing climax.

Collet is very appealing as the brilliant hero, almost convincing in situations that require him to be more resourceful than is truly possible. Lithgow adds quirky personality and charm to what might have become a standard "bad guy sees the light" assignment. As their respective sounding boards, Nixon and Eikenberry both contribute to the film's emphasis upon human values over mere hardware in a genre which has increasingly been upstaged by its special effects work.

Those special effects here are entirely realistic rather than showy, another feather in the cap of wiz Bran Ferren, who also appears in an opening reel cameo as a lab assistant. Philip Rosenberg's production design and Billy Williams' camerawork are exemplary.

Feature was financed by Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, but print caught already had the Cannon logo at introduction, reflecting Cannon's recent buyout of what was once TESE.

There are way too many over-analytical reviews ripping this movie to shreds! Folks, this is neither a documentary nor a nuclear physicist's guide to building a real atomic bomb- the whole idea is to entertain and maybe leave you wondering and thinking...what if? It's a story!

Looks like people actually do watch movies with pen and paper, rack up every possible reality defect, and review each one of them here. Doesn't sound entertaining to me. What they are lacking is an imagination. The movie does draw you in fully and take your mind for a good ride. That's what we pay for! Relax and enjoy, suspend your serious reality for an hour or two! It's a decent movie!

There are some things man was never meant to know. Or at least high school kids. The story is interesting in its concept: smart kid builds nuclear device and is barely saved from blowing everyone to smithereens. (Vide: "War Games".) Its execution however makes one squirm with discomfort rather than suspense. First, the acting isn't bad. John Lithgow is especially effective in his scenes with Jill Eikenberry -- a genuinely nice guy just trying to get along. The rest of the performances are adequate. But the character played by Christopher Collett is truly abrasive.

His scientific intellect is honed to a razor edge, as we find out near the beginning when he arranges a small explosion in the lab drawer of a fellow student who is his rival in science class. Hilarious. His smugness is almost unbearable. And science is about all he's good at. He realizes that Lithgow is "hitting on my mom" (innocently enough) and resents him for it. He doesn't seem to know what an Oedipus complex is. He hasn't heard of Woodward and Bernstein. He asks, "Who's Anne Frank?", and isn't being rhetorical.

Worst of all, he doesn't really care about his non-scientific ignorance. He's only a few steps removed from the maniac in "Pi." The plot is simply unbelievable. He may be extremely clever but unless he has some sort of PSI power as well, he could not disarm the alarm system in two shakes of a lamb's tail -- let alone unfailingly operate the complex robotic systems in the laboratory. And without so much as a previous glance at it, he knows that the inner wall of the lab can be cut with a pen knife, and he knows just where to cut it too. He may be superhuman as well.

Radioactive plutonium is still radioactive, even without having reached critical mass, isn't it? And although rubber gloves may stop larger particles like protons, they don't provide much protection against gamma rays, do they? I may be wrong, but at least I'm willing to admit my ignorance, which is more than this egocentric showoff is able to do.

The first time I saw this movie it was fascinating, especially the first half, not the last part, which deteriorates into a familiar pattern. But I saw it again recently and found it more irritating than anything else, because of Collett's character and because the plot was so full of holes. At least I HOPE it was full of holes. If it were so easy to throw together a nuclear weapon occupying a space the size of a trombone case, and to do so in only a few weeks, I'd hate to think of what might happen if some religious fundamentalist antimodernization Ludditic cryptolunatic saw the movie and it gave him ideas.

The ending is a heart-warming development in which Lithgow, decides the fight the military and declares, "No more secrets", and throw open the gates to the college kids cheering outside. Right.

It's pretty good, well paced, with competent to even great acting.

But the script is so ridiculous. Despite high production values, the plot is like that of a kid's cartoon.

This film, uh, bombed badly, and I think I know why. A film with lead characters that are scientists/engineers/wunderkind is likely to appeal to that type of audience. And that's the exact audience that's not going to buy the implausibilities all over this film.

The worst to me is when he breaks into the lab. He visited the lab once and yet on a whim he is able to completely defeat the lab's security in a VERY elaborate operation.

However, it's still pretty charming. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it takes itself so EARNESTLY. It's kind of like Point Break in that respect- it takes a completely ridiculous high concept and treats it so respectfully, it comes out charming. It also manages to feel quite a lot like Wargames, as if it were set in the same universe, but without feeling at all like a ripoff. Basically, it feels like a well made sequel that manages to recapture most of the magic of the original., something very rare with actual sequels.

I was around back in the day, and I do recall this being advertised kind of as a comedy. I'm pretty sure the "does anyone have a Phillips screwdriver" gag being in a trailer. Apparently it was one of those pictures that the studio either didn't understand how to market, or decided to market it as something it wasn't.

There are some solid gags that fit in organically, like the screwdriver, uh, bit, but the, but it's certainly not remotely a comedy.

As a reviewer noted, Paul is a genius, yet is frequently stupid about things and not in consistent ways. This is annoying but I suspect that was done because if he were truly aware of these things, he would be quite evil. He's already pretty much a sociopath.