Flight of the Navigator (1986)

nTitle: Flight of the Navigator (1986)

nDirector: Randal Kleiser

nCast: Cliff De Young, Joey Cramer, Paul Reubens, VeronicanCartwright, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matt Adler

nReview:

nDirector Randal Kleiser has had a very eclectic directorial career;nhe is responsible for a very disparate bunch of successful films, nevernadhering to one genre. For example, this is the guy that directed one fo thenmost popular musicals ever; Grease (1978) and yet also the guy who directednHoney I Blew Up the Kid (1992) and The Blue Lagoon (1980). He also made Big TopnPee Wee (1988) which to me is one of the worst movies ever made, but I’llnforgive him for that one, every director is entitled to a stinker or two inntheir career. Flight of the Navigator is another one of Kleiser’s eclectic directorialnchoices; a sci-fi family film from Disney. It is one of the most endearing ofnmovies for me because I watched it a whole lot when I was a kid, so yeah, thisnreview is coming from the perspective of my nostalgia goggles, which is kind ofncool because you’re getting the opinion of a true child of the 80’s!

nFlight of the Navigator starts out in 1978, during a verynsunny and beautiful 4^th ofnJuly day. Here we meet the Freemans, your typical American family comprised of mom, dad,ntwo brothers and a dog. The focus of the story is on David Freeman, a twelvenyear old kid with twelve year old preoccupations: getting his dog to learn hownto catch a Frisbee, fighting with his little brother and having the hots for angirl, but not knowing how to go about it. One day, while searching for hisnbrother in the woods suddenly David discovers that he has traveled seven yearsninto the future! How did this come to be? And what does it have to do with thenspaceship that the U.S. government has found?

nSo I love this movie for various reasons, one of them isnbecause it sends out a very pro-family message. I am a family man at heart andnI love it when films augment the importance of family. Flight of the Navigator speaksnabout the importance of appreciating your family when you have them, becausenyou never know when you might lose them. The moments when David is sharing timenwith his family are really good, I mean, Kleiser really captured the feeling ofna bright, colorful, sunny day with the family, those moments when the family isnjust having a great time with each other really clicked for me, made me want tonbe 12 years old again and spending time with my family. But when David getsnswiped to the future, suddenly his family isn’t his family anymore. His littlenbrother is older than he is, his mom and dad are older, it’s just not thenfamily he had back in 1978, back when things were normal. So this is a story ofnDavid simply trying to get back to his time, and his family the way he knewnthem; not the altered reality version of them. Basically this is a kiddynfriendly version of Back to the Future (1985), sans the sex and alcohol. And I’mnpretty sure this is exactly what these filmmakers where aiming for, after all,njust a year before Flight of the Navigator was released, Back to the Futurenmade many millions at the box office, so this type of story was popular at thentime.

nThe difference between both films is the science fictionnangle is stronger on Flight of the Navigator. While the DeLorean in the Back tonthe Future films was created by a semi mad scientist, the time machine innFlight of the Navigator is an alien spaceship from another galaxy. Speaking ofnthe alien spaceship, this is one cool looking ship! When I was a kid, I wantednto be David piloting that super cool alien craft. The ship was voiced by Paul Reuben’s;n a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman. Reuben’s distinctnvoice goes unnoticeable for most of the film because the filmmakers altered it tonmake it sound more like a computer, sometimes you’ll hear Reuben’s distinctivenPee Wee like laughter emerging. The ship is a combination of various forms ofnvisual effects, but most noticeable of all is the use of computer generatednimages, which at the time were just getting started. I remember, as a kid,nthose few instances of computer generated images where awesome! Now of course,nlittle bits of computer generated images like the ones found in Flight of thenNavigator are childsplay; today entire films are computer generated! But backnthen, seeing something like this was innovative and exciting. So expect a filmnin which CGI was taking its first baby steps towards becoming the out ofncontrol rampaging monster it is today.

nAnother reason I love this movie is because it instantlyntakes me back to the 80’s. There’s this moment in which the government takesnDavid to some sort of complex in order to perform some tests on him and innorder to make him feel more at home, they buy him a bunch of toys. So when hengets to his room, it’s filled with a bunch of G.I. Joes and Transformers. Wow,nnow that took me back! They also talk about MTV (back when MTV was cool) andnTwisted Sister and they have Sarah Jessica Parker dressed up all Madonna-like;nit’s little bits like these that took me back to the decade. Another thing thatnmakes this one very 80’s is how the entire film is centered on a twelve yearnold kid, so we’re talking about alien spaceships, time travel and mind melds,nbut everything depends on the actions of this kid! If I had to say anythingnnegative about the film it’s that it’s very simplistic in nature, but thennagain, this is a film aimed at twelve year olds, so it’s not meant to be deep, thenmain purpose here is to feel good and have fun, and in this sense the moviendelivers. There’s this really cool moment where David is flying the ship whilenlistening to “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, definitely felt some goodnvibes all around. But then again, I wasnfeeling good vibes from this movie all the time. It’s one of the best kid movies from the 80’s which is the reason why I mentioned it on my Quintessential Kid Films from the 80’s blogpost, it’s lighthearted family farenof the best kind.

nRated: 3 1/2 out of 5n