Le vol du navigateur

In 1978, in Fort Lauderdale, the twelve years old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) goes through the grove to bring his younger brother back home. He slides, falls in a hole and faints. When he wakes up and goes home, eight years have passed and he has not aged. Meanwhile, NASA scientists find a spacecraft near to a fallen electric tower. David is brought to NASA to be studied and soon he realizes that he can communicate with the UFO. He finds out that he was sent to a distant planet in a very high speed and became the navigator of the spacecraft. In his life, he had lost 4.4 hours. On Earth, eight years have passed. This movie is a delightful entertainment, using good special effects and having a very reasonable story. It is a family entertainment, indicated for all ages. Sarah Jessica Parker, famous presently due to the show `From Sex and the City', has a minor participation as a trainee in NASA. My vote is seven.

Flight of the Navigator is one of those terrific adventure films for kids, even after all these years. It also falls into a long line of fun 80s sci-fi/adventure family movies.

Davey (Joey Cramer) goes into the woods looking for his little brother one evening in 1978. When he wakes up after a brief period of unconsciousness, he turns into a scientific marvel. Nothing is as Davey remembers it, but he can't figure out why because he only fell asleep for a brief period.

Davey is told that his parents reported the young boy missing in 1978, the evening that he went searching in the woods for his younger brother, referring to the incident in the past tense because it is 1985. Only Davey is still exactly the same age and everything he was from 1978, while time has passed for everyone else. His little brother is now his big brother (Matt Adler). His parents are old. Everyone is confused and the scientific world find the situation fascinating.

The scientists turn Davey into their personal guinea pig, running tests and probing him and all that junk. And soon they discover, that Davey was abducted. Davey, understandably a confused little kid, can't figure out what's going on and he sure doesn't want to be locked up in some lab where people prod at him all day long and tell him very little. So, he breaks lose, and hops aboard the spaceship that took him through time before. While it is an escape from the scientists and their security (briefly), it also holds the answers to what happened to him. It is also an opportunity for Davey to learn everything from this spaceship. And a kid's movie isn't complete without personifying inanimate objects. The spaceship is essentially controlled by Max, which is like it's CPU, a CPU with a cool sense of humor who likewise tries to learn about human emotions and condition from his passenger, Davey.

Filmed around Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, it is still a cool movie for kids...teenagers...whatever, having a little bit of something for everyone. Great humor, cool special effects, and the like.

You know the drill: 12 year old David falls into a ravine in the woods and discovers when he wakes up that he's been missing for eight years. He also discovers that he's hearing voices that seem to come from a mysterious craft housed in a NASA hangar.

My two cents worth: In a time when all the live action Disney movies seem to be a variant on "I was normal but just discovered I am/have just been mistaken for royalty/merperson/rock star/leprechaun/etc., this movie from the 1980's is a real breath of fresh air.

The scenario, waking up and discovering that everything except you has changed, and knowing you'll be somebody's idea of a guinea pig for the rest of your life, is instantly relatable and creepy, whether you're a kid or an adult. The kid fainting, the change in the two brother's relationship due to the age flop, parents trying to protect their son, government trying to exploit the kid's knowledge, everyone's reactions to the situation are all logical and believable.

And who hasn't wanted a chance to fly a saucer? Having Max, the ship's pilot, be a robot was another stroke of brilliance. So many movies have the aliens flying all the way here to come visit us face to face. But if we send machines to other planets because it's cheaper than going ourselves, why wouldn't they? And having him learn about Earth courtesy of a 12-year-old's TV polluted brain was hysterical.

The movie seems a little dated today; but it's forgivable because, like Back to the Future, it's set so specifically in a certain frame of time (you expect it to look and sound like 1986 because, hey, they keep telling you that's when it is.)

Recommendations: Back to the Future and Big are the two I can think of that are most along these lines.

Flight of the Navigator is directed by Randal Kleiser and is adapted to screenplay by Michael Burton and Matt MacManus from a story by Mark H. Baker. It stars Joey Cramer, Veronica Cartwright, Cliff De Young, Sarah Jessica Parker, Howard Hesseman and the voice of Paul Reubens. Music is by Alan Silvestri and cinematography is by James Glennon and Eric McGraw.

Young David Freeman (Cramer) is out in the woods near his home in Fort Lauderdale when he falls down a ravine and is knocked unconscious. Waking up he finds that the world around him has advanced by 8 years but he hasn't. After being reunited with his overjoyed parents, it becomes apparent that David has had an encounter with a extra terrestrial life form, which of course greatly interests the authorities...

It's a family friendly sci-fi with a difference, in that it doesn't have to take us into space for its tale, yet this in no way detracts from how enjoyable Flight of the Navigator is. It is told from young David's perspective (with Cramer impressionable), thus it firmly engages the kids in the audience. The relationship between David and the Phaleon computer system (Reubens) engages with witty chatter and educational purpose, and the effects work should not be taken for granted either. If we are to be picky then the build up is a touch long before the pic goes "extra terrestrial", and Cartwright and De Young are barely given time to impact as parents coming to terms with a family life turned upside down. But small complaints really and this is a lovely film, one that isn't just for 1980s nostalgists. 7/10

David Freeman (Joey Cramer) was a regular 12-year-old boy living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida until he fell into a ditch and was knocked unconscious. When he awoke things had drastically changed. For him it was merely four hours later but for everyone else it was eight years later. He discovered this massive time shift when his house was occupied by new people.

At this same time NASA got a hold of a UFO with no discernible way of entering it until they became aware of David. David would eventually be drawn to the spaceship--which spoke--and the two of them went on a high speed adventure.

Along with giving us Paul Reubens aka Pee-Wee Herman as a voice for the ship we got some other 1980's specific nuggets. Carolyn McAdams (Sarah Jessica Parker) reminded us that from 1978 to 1986 music videos were created, rock groups had weird names like Twisted Sister, computers and robotics were on the uptick, and coke had at least four types (New Coke, Classic Coke, Cherry Coke, and Caffeine Free Coke). This movie should've been put in a time capsule.

The movie was really about David and the ship's adventure. The ship was standard robot speak for a bit until it began to sound more like Pee-Wee Herman. This was a fun mildly exciting movie that is perfectly suited for kids.