Of two major High Concept/teen-oriented nuclear war thrillers made in the mid-‘80s, Marshall Brickman’s THE MANHATTAN PROJECT had a more perfect pitch (My High School Science Fair Project - a Nuclear Bomb) than WARGAMES’ High School tech nerd accidentally hacks into the military’s super computer not realizing he’s playing THERMONUCLEAR GLOBAL WAR not as a game, but for real. Yikes! But MANHATTAN’s director couldn’t hold the mixed tone of threat & schoolboy comic adventure and the film tanked. (Stopping Brickman’s promising directing career in its tracks.) WARGAMES, a bit more diffuse, it’s YA DR. STRANGELOVE meets AI cautionary, and under director John Badham, also has trouble maintaining its varied tone. But here it hardly matters since Matthew Broderick, in only his second feature (and first top-billed), hits every tricky move & mood, micro-tuning between guileless youth, techo nerd comedy, misunderstood son, terrified gameboy and romance apprentice. Though even he can’t quite pull off an ending that drops Kubrickian satire for Dr. Suess’s THE BUTTER BATTLE platitudes. (He also can’t pull off wanting to spend his last night on Earth learning to swim rather than learning to fuck plucky girlfriend Ally Sheedy.)
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Even younger viewers will have little trouble recognizing the film’s ‘ancient’ digital technology. (What are those huge removable data platters, soon replaced by floppy discs, called?) But they may be flummoxed when Broderick ‘hot wires’ a pay phone using one of those now outlawed throwaway tear-off soda can pull tabs.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, THE MANHATTAN PROJECT/'86.
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