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Martha Coolidge's bright, whimsical Real Genius can credit part of its substantial and richly deserved cult following to the fact that nothing has changed: Raunchy, lowbrow teen comedies are forever in vogue, and SDI is still an impossible, money-sucking political mirage.

It's a brisk, smart satirical comedy from the writers of "Police Academy" and the director of "Valley Girl," set in a Caltech-like institution for the whiz kids of the sciences. How refreshing it is to see young people depicted as having a capacity for thought as well as emotion.

Real Genius contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it.

Fabulously acted and written with zing and zong, it's one of the few enjoyable movies of the summer.

What lifts the production above the run-of-the-mill is swift direction by Martha Coolidge, who has a firm grasp over the manic material.

What the film needs, instead of these familiar teen-movie trappings, is a cleverness and eccentricity to match that of its characters. For the most part, these are qualities that it lacks.

It's a change to see young folk are more obsessed with technology than the promptings of the trouser department, but the gizmo-heavy hi-jinks (fun with helium, frozen gas and other science-class materials) do outstay their welcome.

The humor is relentlessly cruel, smug, and disconnected from any sense of how human beings might behave in similar situations. But though she's hardly able to dominate the project, director Martha Coolidge does manage to insert some of the sweetly eccentric characterization that distinguished her Valley Girl: one of the heroes, played by Gabe Jarret, is actually believable and sympathetic as a socially insecure adolescent, and a few of the minor figures are brought to life with deft, simple strokes. Though ultimately obnoxious, the film lingers in the mind for a few moments of genuine charm.

While the characters are fairly offbeat and interesting, the film is weighed down by some tediously handled camp intrigue, political skullduggery, and $2 million worth of special effects.

The director was Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), about whom people have been using the word "potential" for a decade or so. Trapped inside Real Genius, there's a real director trying to get out. [7 Aug 1985, p.D5]