SUMMARY REVIEW OF 'D.A.R.Y.L.' BECAUSE THE POSTER IS COOL

One of those better movie posters than the movie movie YEAR: 1985

Young Daryl has some sort of amnesia and very special powers. He can play piano without having played before and can hit a baseball right out of the park. The scenes involving Daryl (played nicely by Barrett Oliver between an inspired, performance in THE NEVERENDING STORY and lifeless turns in both COCOON films), his foster parents, and his buddy, Turtle — our comic relief here — are part of a fun and semi involving 1980's sci-fi kids flick. Then, something happens...

Fifty minutes through — just as the audience is getting into the rhythm of a very laid-back fish-outta-water story — Daryl is picked up by his real parents i.e. the scientists that "created" him. His name is spelled D.A.R.Y.L., which stands for "Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform" and. at this point, it's all downhill and keeps going until you just don't care if little D becomes a pile of scrap metal, or if he finds a new life as a real boy. More family fun and less formidable military evil and this would have been a terrific movie. But Reagan was in the White House, and for Hollywood, the government was always up to no good (until 1992 when all was good in the jungle). Either way, Michael McKean fans will like him in a "normal" part, which he never did back then.