Real Genius

Real Genius
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Martha Coolidge
Produced by
Screenplay by
Story by
  • Neal Israel
  • Pat Proft
Starring
Music by Thomas Newman
Cinematography Vilmos Zsigmond
Edited by Richard Chew
Production
company
Delphi III Productions
Distributed by TriStar Pictures
Release date
  • August 7, 1985 (1985-08-07)
Running time
 106 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $13 million

Real Genius is a 1985 American science fiction comedy film directed by Martha Coolidge. The film's screenplay was written by Neal Israel, Pat Proft, and Peter Torokvei. It stars Val Kilmer and Gabriel Jarret.

The film is set on the campus of Pacific Tech, a science and engineering university similar to Caltech. Chris Knight (Kilmer) is a genius in his senior year working on a chemical laser. Mitch Taylor (Jarret) is a new student on campus who is paired up with Knight to work on the project.

The film received positive reviews from critics, and grossed $12,952,019 at the United States and Canadian box office.

Plot

The CIA is secretly developing "Crossbow", a space shuttle-mounted laser weapon precise enough to incinerate a single target, planning to use it for illegal political assassinations. However, they struggle with its power source, and have covertly hired Professor Jerry Hathaway at Pacific Technical University to develop this. Hathaway has assembled a group of genius students in physics to do the work for him, though outside of his graduate student Kent, purposely does not tell them the reason for their research.

Hathaway recruits high-school student Mitch Taylor to join the team. Mitch is roomed with Chris Knight, a "legend" in the physics area. Mitch becomes dismayed that Chris is more of a goof-off than a hard-working student. Along with Chris, Mitch is introduced to others on Hathaway's team, including Jordan, "Ick" Ikagami, and the mysterious Lazlo Hollyfeld, a middle-aged man that lives in Chris' closet. Despite his youthfulness and inexperience, Hathaway assigns Mitch to lead the team instead of Kent, believing Mitch can bring Chris in line.

Hathaway is pressured by the CIA to hurry the project, and Hathaway assigns the team a rigorous timetable. Chris dismisses this, and instead convinces Mitch to join him at a pool party. Kent reports this to Hathaway, and in turn, Hathaway lambastes Mitch; in tears, Mitch calls his parents and tells them he is considering dropping out, unaware Kent had recorded the call. The next day, Kent plays the recording over the school's public address system, embarrassing Mitch. Chris takes Mitch aside and confides in him about his outlook on life. Chris had known Lazlo was a brilliant student like himself, devoting his life to his studies, but when he had discovered that his research was being used for weapons, he had a breakdown and became the recluse he is today. Chris does not want the same to happen to him, and puts his enjoyment of life before studies. With that, Chris offers to help Mitch get back at Kent, and with the others, prank Kent by deconstructing and reconstructing his car within Kent's dorm room.

As the project is still lagging, Hathaway threatens to expel Chris if he does not ace the upcoming exam in his class. Chris fears he will fail the test, but Mitch repays Chris for his help earlier to help provide the motivation to study and get a perfect grade on the test. Further, Chris comes to inspiration to finalize the laser project, and the team successfully create a powerful, but stable, laser beam. The team goes out to celebrate, but as they talk, they realize that a laser that powerful could only have one use, for hostile purposes. By the time they return to the lab, they find the laser equipment has been taken by Hathaway.

The students are able to implant a radio transmitter in one of Kent's fillings, and use it to speak to him as God; Kent divulges the location of a nearby Air Force base where Hathaway will be demonstrating the equipment. They decide to get back at Hathaway. Chris and Mitch sneak into the base and remove the circuits that would prevent the laser from overheating. Lazlo repositions the targetting of the laser to aim at Hathaway's home, and the other students fill the house with a mass of unpopped popcorn. As the test starts, the laser hits a prism on the house, heating and popping the popcorn, which fills and overwhelms the house completely. Kent, who had been brought to the house by "God", takes this as a religious moment and is buried in popcorn. The laser soon fails, and the CIA dismiss Hathaway from the project. He returns home to find his house destroyed. Chris, Mitch, and the others look on in amusement, while Lazlo, who had been entering a number of sweepstakes contests with calculated mathematical odds, prepares to leave with his recently-won RV and other prizes, ready to move on with his life.

Cast

Production

To prepare for Real Genius, Martha Coolidge spent months researching laser technology and the policies of the CIA, and interviewed dozens of students at Caltech.[1] The screenplay was extensively rewritten, first by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, later by Coolidge and Peter Torokvei.[2]

Producer Brian Grazer remembers that when Val Kilmer came in to audition for the role of Chris Knight, he brought candy bars and performed tricks. Kilmer remembered it differently. "The character wasn't polite, so when I shook Grazer's hand and he said, 'Hi, I'm the producer,' I said, 'I'm sorry. You look like you're 12 years old. I like to work with men.'"[3]

To achieve the house filled with popcorn for the film's climax, the production team popped popcorn continuously for three months. The popcorn was treated with fire retardant so it would not combust and covered so that it would not be eaten by birds and possibly poison them. The popcorn was then shipped to a subdivision under construction in Canyon Country, northwest of Los Angeles, and placed in the house.[4]

To promote the film, the studio held what it billed as "the world's first computer press conference" with Coolidge and Grazer answering journalists' questions via computer terminals and relayed over the CompuServe computer network.[5]

The dorm in the film is based on Dabney House at Caltech, and Caltech students served as consultants and played extras in the film.[6]

Reception

Box office

Real Genius was released on August 9, 1985 in 990 theaters grossing $2.5 million in its first weekend. It went on to make $12,952,019 in North America.[7]

Critical response

Real Genius received mixed reviews.

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "the film is best when it takes [the students] seriously, though it does so only intermittently".[8] David Ansen wrote in his review for Newsweek, "When it's good, the dormitory high jinks feel like the genuine release of teen-age tensions and cruelty. Too bad the story isn't as smart as the kids in it".[9] In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "Many of the scenes, already badly written, fail to fulfill their screwball potential... But despite its enthusiastic young cast and its many good intentions, it doesn't quite succeed. I guess there's a leak in the think tank".[10]

Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half stars out of four, saying that it "contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it".[11] In his review for The Globe and Mail, Salem Alaton wrote, "Producer Brian Grazer craved a feel-good picture, and she [Martha Coolidge] turned in the summer's best, and she didn't cheat to do it. There's heart in the kookiness. Real Genius has real people, real comedy and real fun".[12] Richard Schickel of Time praised the film for being "a smart, no-nonsense movie that may actually teach its prime audience a valuable lesson: the best retort to an intolerable situation is not necessarily a food fight. Better results, and more fun, come from rubbing a few brains briskly together".[13]

Scientific accuracy

In the MythBusters episode, "Car vs. Rain", first broadcast on June 17, 2009, the MythBusters team tried to determine whether the final scene in the film, the destruction of Dr. Hathaway's house with laser-popped popcorn, is actually possible. First they used a ten-watt laser to pop a single kernel wrapped in aluminum foil, showing that popping corn is possible with a laser, then they tested a scaled-down model of a house. The popcorn was popped through induction heating because a sufficiently large laser was not available. The result was that the popcorn was unable to expand sufficiently to break glass, much less break open a door or move the house off its foundation. Instead, it ceased to expand and then simply charred.[14]

It was also specifically stated in the program that a five-megawatt laser still did not exist, even in military applications, and that the most powerful military laser they knew of was 100 kilowatts.[14]

In January, 2011, it was further demonstrated on video[15] in a home setting that a kernel of corn directly exposed to laser light from accessible consumer level lasers could be popped as reported by TechCrunch.[16]

The solid xenon-halogen laser proposed and built by Chris in the latter half of the film, though in the realm of science fiction, was based on theory of the time. Real Genius, through consultant Martin A. Gundersen (who played the Math Professor), was later given a citation in an academic publication which detailed the scientific basis behind the laser.[17]

TV series

Reports surfaced in September 2014 that a potential TV series was in the works,[18] with NBC was set produce the comedy series with Sony TV, Happy Madison and 3 Arts Entertainment,[19] however, as of December 2017 there are no updates on the production.

References

  1. ↑ Attanasio, Paul (August 7, 1985). "The Road to Hollywood: Director Martha Coolidge's Long Trek to Real Genius". Washington Post.
  2. ↑ Attanasio, Paul (August 7, 1985). "Fun With the Whiz Kids". Washington Post.
  3. ↑ Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca (June 30, 1995). "Cool Hero: Val Kilmer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  4. ↑ Ryan, Kyle (April 21, 2010). "Random Roles: William Atherton". The Onion A.V. Club. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
  5. ↑ Deans, Laurie (August 2, 1985). "Howard, Keaton hope to make a splash". The Globe and Mail.
  6. ↑ "References to Caltech in _Real Genius". Alumnus.caltech.edu. 2013-03-26. Retrieved 2013-04-04.
  7. ↑ "Real Genius". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
  8. ↑ Maslin, Janet (August 7, 1985). "Real Genius". The New York Times. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  9. ↑ Ansen, David (August 26, 1985). "Hollywood's Silly Season". Newsweek.
  10. ↑ Kempley, Rita (August 9, 1985). "Real Genius Reels, Falls". Washington Post.
  11. ↑ Ebert, Roger (August 7, 1985). "Real Genius". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  12. ↑ Alaton, Salem (August 12, 1985). "This time the teen antics are funny Real Genius is a real gem". The Globe and Mail.
  13. ↑ Schickel, Richard (August 12, 1985). "Guess Who Flunked the IQ Test?". Time. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  14. 1 2 "Car vs. Rain". MythBusters. Season 2009. Episode 11. June 17, 2009. Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on March 7, 2010. Retrieved December 24, 2010.
  15. ↑ Stevenson, Scott, Arctic Lasers Pop Popcorn - Pocket Blue Lasers Popping Popcorn
  16. ↑ Burns, Matt (Jan 14, 2011), Popping Popcorn With Lasers Is Awesome And Healthy
  17. ↑ Fajardo, Mario E.; Apkarian, V. A. (1987-02-13), "Simulated Radiative Dissociation and Gain Measurements of Xe2Cl in Solid Xenon" (PDF), Chemical Physics Letters, chem.ps.uci.edu, 134, p. 51, doi:10.1016/0009-2614(87)80012-x — Citation number 7 on p. 54 in the paper (on p. 4 in PDF).
  18. ↑ Michael Kennedy. "'Real Genius' TV Series in Development)". Screenrant. Retrieved 2015-03-09.
  19. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie. "'Real Genius' Movie Reboot Set As NBC Comedy Series With Happy Madison & Sony TV". Deadline.com. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
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