{"id":2686,"date":"2024-08-22T16:07:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T16:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2686"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:20:56","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:20:56","slug":"the-philadelphia-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/22\/the-philadelphia-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Philadelphia Experiment <\/strong>(1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Sci-Fi-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stewart Raffill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Janover and William Gray\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kenneth Wannberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 3, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Pare, Nancy Allen, Eric Christmas, Bobby Di Cicco, Louise Latham, Kene Holliday, Joe Dorsey, Michael Currie, Stephen Tobolowsky, Gary Brockette, Debra Troyer, Miles McNamara, Ralph Manza, James Edgcomb, Glenn Morshower.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $8.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m asking myself if I would have liked The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> as much if it were made today. Is my fondness for this convoluted time-travel flick based solely on nostalgia? I guess I\u2019m going to have to answer no to the first question and quite possibly to the second as well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t see The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> at the movies. I had a chance to see it on a double bill with Red Dawn, but I opted for something else that weekend. I caught it on HBO the following summer and didn\u2019t much care for it. I actually fell asleep on it. I tried watching it again about 20 years later and liked it better even though it\u2019s sort of confusing if you\u2019re not paying attention.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So what exactly are its good points? Well, aside from its nostalgic value, it\u2019s also a New World release. The special effects are pretty good, non-CGI usually is. It\u2019s always great to see Nancy Allen (Blow Out) in a movie. It\u2019s hilarious how horrible an actor Michael Pare (Eddie and the Cruisers) is although he wasn\u2019t too awful in Streets of Fire earlier that summer. I suppose it\u2019s natural to feel affection for movies from one\u2019s teen years and so it is that I\u2019m giving The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> a positive write-up even though it\u2019s a bad movie. It\u2019s one of those bad movies that you can enjoy even though common sense says otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story opens in 1943 with sailors David Herdeg (Pare) and Jim Parker (Di Cicco, 1941) taking part in a Navy-sponsored experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Base conducted by Dr. James Longstreet (McNamara). The idea is to make Allied ships invisible to enemy radar, but something goes horribly wrong and our two heroes find themselves in a Nevada desert in the year 1984. They land in a small town that mysteriously disappears. They manage to escape the secure site and make their way to a diner where all hell starts to break loose when Jim causes an arcade game to blow up. The guys were affected by the experiment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Needing a quick escape, David takes Allison (Allen) hostage and forces her to drive them away from the scene. It\u2019s at this point the guys learn that they\u2019re in the future and things aren\u2019t what they used to be. Meanwhile, Dr. Longstreet (Christmas, Porky\u2019s) is conducting another experiment using the same technology that was used in the \u201943 experiment. That\u2019s why the small town vanished. Somehow, the two experiments have linked together across time. Aware of David and Jim\u2019s existence, Naval Security has been chasing them, trying to bring them back to the base. A lot of other crazy stuff happens, but I\u2019ll leave that for you to see for yourself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So I\u2019m trying to figure out what else to say about The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> that I haven\u2019t already said. Okay, here\u2019s something. Despite the title, none of it was actually filmed in Philadelphia. I should know, I live right outside the City of Brotherly Love. It would appear that The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> was primarily filmed in California and Utah. The title is actually based on the urban legend of \u201cThe Philadelphia Experiment\u201d, an alleged military experiment that was carried out at the Naval Shipyard. It also involved \u201ccloaking\u201d; that is, rendering ships invisible to enemy radar. The Navy denies any such experiment took place, but it does make for an interesting sci-fi flick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Given that it\u2019s a New World flick, it\u2019s a low budget job, but the special effects look damn good. Of course, this is coming from somebody that doesn\u2019t really like CGI all that much. For whatever reason, the old school stuff looks more real to me. So maybe I like The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> for its retro look. At least director Stewart Raffill (The Ice Pirates) keeps things moving at a rapid clip. He doesn\u2019t let it get boring. He has an interesting filmography, this guy. He also made The Sea Gypsies (1978), a family film that was a mainstay on HBO in the early 80s. He also did The Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1975), Across the Great Divide (1976), High Risk (1981), Mac and Me (1988) and Mannequin: On the Move (1991). Okay, not exactly an impressive resume, but interesting if you dig cheeseball flicks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So let me get to the main point of the review. The Philadelphia Experiment<\/strong> is a fun bad movie. It\u2019s a decent B-movie and would make a great bottom half of a double bill. Even Pare\u2019s bad acting is enjoyable by today\u2019s standards. I can\u2019t help it; I like this movie despite all the signs pointing to a failure. In my book, it\u2019s kind of a win.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World Pictures\/Sci-Fi-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 102 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stewart Raffill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Janover and William Gray\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Kenneth Wannberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 3, 1984 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Pare, Nancy Allen, Eric Christmas, Bobby Di Cicco, Louise Latham, Kene Holliday, Joe Dorsey, Michael Currie, Stephen Tobolowsky, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Philadelphia-Experiment.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3620,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2686\/revisions\/3620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}