Flight of the Navigator (1986) Disney/Sci-Fi-Adventure RT: 90 minutes Rated PG (sci-fi action, language, some innuendo) Director: Randal Kleiser Screenplay: Michael Burton and Matt MacManus Music: Alan Silvestri Cinematography: James Glennon Release date: August 1, 1986 (US) Cast: Joey Cramer, Paul Reubens (as “Paul Mall”), Cliff DeYoung, Veronica Cartwright, Matt Adler, Albie Whitaker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Howard Hesseman. Box Office: $18.5M (US)
Rating: *** ½
Flight of the Navigator came out the summer before I started college. Hey, community college is still college, right? ANYWAY, the point I’m trying to make is that in the summer ’86, I was 18 and an adult in the chronological sense. I had a lot on my mind at the time, but I always made time to go to the movies. Why? It’s quite simple really. No matter how I was or where I was in life, I could always (and still do) count on movies to transport me to another place or simpler time. At the very least, they were (and still are) a welcome escape from reality.
In my teens, I wasn’t naturally inclined to see kid’s movies. Now that I was finally old enough to see R-rated films, I wasn’t about to waste my time on dumb kid’s movies. I might not have seen Flight of the Navigator at the movies if the studio didn’t hold a special advance sneak preview the Sunday before it came out. It didn’t look too bad and it was showing with Running Scared which I already saw and enjoyed. Why not, I thought. I didn’t have to work that night and it was showing at a theater close to my house. At the very least, it would be one more title to add to the list of movies I saw that year. Little did I know I was in for a pleasant surprise. I LOVED Flight of the Navigator! It was so much fun. For 90 minutes, I felt like I was 11 again. It felt nice.
The story begins on July 4, 1978. David Freeman (Cramer, Runaway) is a normal 12YO boy. He constantly fights and bickers with his mischievous little brother Jeff (Whitaker) who always gets away with everything. His parents, Bill (DeYoung, F/X) and Helen (Cartwright, Alien), always scold him because he’s the oldest. That night, while walking through the woods to pick up Jeff from his friend’s house, the younger boy scares David who falls into a ravine and gets knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he goes to his house to find another family living there. Already freaked out, he’s in for a bigger shock. It turns out eight years have passed and he was declared legally dead after being missing all those years. Wait, it gets even freakier. His parents and brother (Adler, Teen Wolf) have aged while he hasn’t. That’s a lot to take in for a person of ANY age.
NASA is interested in David. It seems they found a seemingly impenetrable alien spacecraft disabled after crashing through power lines. During medical testing, David’s brainwaves reveal images of the spaceship. Dr. Faraday (Hesseman, Head of the Class) convinces the boy to stay at a NASA research facility for 48 hours so they can get to the bottom of what happened to him. Naturally, it’s a lie. When David figures this out, he manages to escape from the facility with help from the spaceship with which he shares some kind of telepathy. He gets on board and flies it out of there. It turns out the ship, overseen by a robotic commander David names “Max” (voiced by Reubens), needs information that’s in David’s brain. The boy agrees to help if Max agrees to take him home afterwards. He really wants to go back to his own time, but Max doesn’t think he’d survive the trip.
Because Flight of the Navigator is a Disney movie, you pretty much know how it’s going to end. It doesn’t matter because it’s so darn much fun. It’s a high-soaring, fast-moving sci-fi-adventure with plenty of action, thrills and laughs. The special effects are cheesy by today’s standards, but that’s part of the charm of old movies. Cramer is an engaging young lead. He was a little annoying in Runaway but he’s good here. Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City) does nicely as Carolyn, a teenage NASA intern who schools David on MTV and Twisted Sister. I suppose it would be a shock to turn on the TV expecting to watch Starsky & Hutch only to see some New Wave band performing a weird-sounding song instead. De Young and Cartwright are good as the parents who only want their son to come home to stay.
Not only does Flight of the Navigator tell a cool story, it also understands things like family dynamics and how the mind of a 12YO boy works. I grew up with a little brother who got away with murder so I understand how David feels. Because of his trip through time, the brother roles are reversed. David becomes the little brother and Jeff the older one. It’s interesting to watch how they interact.
But why are we talking about everyday-type stuff? The kid gets to pilot a spaceship all over the world. How cool is that? At one point, he ends up in Tokyo. In a scene that wouldn’t make the cut today (darn PC!), everybody pulls out cameras and starts snapping photos. Flight of the Navigator has a nifty sense of humor. Reubens gets to go wild as a result of contracting human emotions while retrieving the data from David’s brain. There’s a great scene at a desert gas station; it had me cracking up.
I could go on and on about Flight of the Navigator but I won’t. If you’ve already seen it, what’s the point? You already know it’s awesome. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to ruin it for you. Just know it’s a highly entertaining movie that the whole family can enjoy. It’s rare to find a movie that pleases both kids and adults. Flight of the Navigator is sure to bring out the kid in everybody. It’s just GREAT!
