"The Manhattan Project" is a fairly entertaining movie, so long as you keep it out from under a microscope. Still, those holes are inescapable. Like how did Paul get the resources to fashion a nuclear lab? More than that, how would a high-schooler know how to handle radioactive materials? Can' really sweep that under the "he's a bright kid" rug; we're talking about resources (or maybe it's completely plausible; hell, I'm not a whiz kid). And didn't any Medatomics personnel notice that four-week-old hole in the wall? Putting that all aside, I kinda like this movie. Mostly because I'm a Lithgow fan, and the big bomb defusal scene packs some suspense. But also for superficial reasons, like Cynthia Nixon's house. And the locations, there's some pretty scenery here.
6/10
The Manhattan Project
1986
Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller
The Manhattan Project
1986
Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Keywords: scientistheisthelicopterfugitivebomb
Plot summary
Paul Stephens, a high school student in Ithaca, New York, is generally unmotivated academically despite being a science geek, his interest, as per his age, mostly in those science items that have a wow factor. It is his interest in science that connects him to Dr. John Mathewson, a scientist recently having relocated to Ithaca and who is interested romantically in Paul's soon to be divorced mother, Elizabeth Stephens. It is in that want to impress Elizabeth through Paul that John invites Paul to Medatomics, a medical research facility, so that he can demonstrate some of those "wow" type experiments on which he and his colleagues are working. While impressed enough, Paul is nonetheless more interested in something else in the facility that John only makes passing reference to when asked, that "green goo" which in combination with other things Paul discovers around the facility making him believe that the facility really a secret government nuclear one, the green goo radioactive material for atomic bombs. Paul and his classmate/girlfriend Jenny Anderman, an aspiring journalist, want to expose Medatomics for what they believe it to be as there was no community notification about operating a potentially dangerous nuclear facility there. While Jenny wants to go the traditional route in writing an exposé, Paul believes there is only one effective way to get their message across to the world while making them both famous. The further Paul, with Jenny's help, gets to enacting his plan to its intended end, the more he may place their lives and that of the community in danger, especially if the authorities discover what he is doing.
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No subtlety to be found here, but it's not bad
WarGames without the charm
Scientist John Mathewson (John Lithgow) has improve the purity of plutonium. The military sends him to Ithaca to perfect the process. He likes his real estate agent Elizabeth Stephens (Jill Eikenberry) and tries to befriend her son Paul (Christopher Collet) by showing him around the lab. Paul is a smart inventive teenager who decides to steal some plutonium and make a nuclear bomb for his science fair project. Jenny Anderman (Cynthia Nixon) is the girl and the friend.
This has a bit of WarGames but the lead kid doesn't have the charm of Matthew Broderick. Of course who has the charm of Ferris Bueller. The lead is a teen brat stereotype without the funny sensibility. It spends too much time with montages and slow action. It also makes the mistake of concentrating a bit too much time on the adults. John Lithgow is such a great star that this mistake is understandable. As in many of these 80s caper movies, there is a lot of unreal unbelievability but one must accept such things. The movie struggles mostly with the pompous teen. He is a spoiled teen without any of the comedy. However it is fun to imagine a teen building a nuclear bomb, and defusing the bomb in the end is kinda exciting.
Brilliant 1980s Cold War Film
Paul Stephens (Christopher Collet)'s high school science project has gotten a little out of hand. He just built an atomic bomb. Now he's got 11 hours to make sure it doesn't work.
The plot was likely influenced by the case of John Aristotle Phillips, a Princeton University undergraduate, who came to prominence in 1977 as the "A-Bomb Kid" for designing a nuclear weapon in a term paper using publicly available books and articles.
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and called it "a clever, funny and very skillful thriller ... that stays as close as possible to the everyday lives of convincing people, so that the movie's frightening aspects are convincing". He particularly took note of how "sophisticated" the film was about the relationship between Paul Stephens and John Matthewson, while praising Brickman's ability to "combines everyday personality conflicts with a funny, oddball style of seeing things, and wrap up the whole package into a tense and effective thriller. It's not often that one movie contains so many different kinds of pleasures."
Although I am surprised that Ebert heaped such praise on this film, which seems to have been largely forgotten, I am glad that he did. The Cold War and nuclear war were common themes in the 1980s, whether the direct plot or only alluded to. And some films became huge (WarGames) and others have been forgotten. I suspect this one is largely forgotten because it lacks big name actors (with all due respect to John Lithgow). If it hasn't already been done, someone ought to get a special edition in the works...