cult film freak: VAL KILMER, GABRIEL JARRET & WILLIAM ATHERTON IN 'REAL GENIUS'

Val Kilmer in REAL GENIUS Year: 1985 Rating: ****

In two consecutive years, William Atherton played a smug antagonist against underdog scientific protagonists... in GHOSTBUSTERS he wanted to shut down the titular agency and in REAL GENIUS he's a television science-broadcaster using his high-tech university's two most brilliant students to create a laser that the military ultimately wants to...

Well whatever's going on in the cold-war subplot doesn't make much sense, so the third-act revenge-scheme against Atherton is basically when GENIUS loses the audience (like the TRADING PLACES Wall Street sting)...

Val Kilmer in REAL GENIUS

But what really works is the ANIMAL HOUSE nature of the group of students, led by a similar hybrid of handsome, quick-witted, smart-alleck Tim Matheson and zany partier John Belushi enveloped into soon-to-be TOP GUN superstar/heartthrob Val Kilmer...

What's ironic is, in real life, Kilmer studied at Julliard, excelled in important stage plays and was all about the ultra-serious acting method... winding up (after an anti-drinking Afterschool Special) starring in the wacky WW2-parody TOP SECRET followed by REAL GENIUS, providing him a looser/funnier role where his glib and offbeat comedic timing was put to perfect use...

Gabriel Jarret in REAL GENIUS

Which is the most effective in more subtle ways, with physical gestures/expressions backing the lighting-paced quips banking off rival (and also effectively caustic) Atherton, the only character unscathed by Kilmer/Knight's antics...

Meanwhile, his most frequent victim is the young new student brought in as a science-partner protege, and is technically the central character in brilliant 15-year-old Mitch Taylor, played with sublime vulnerability by Gabriel Jarret, who has Tom Hulce's ANIMAL HOUSE-style virginal innocence (romanced by REVENGE OF THE NERDS geek's dream-girl Michelle Meyrink)...

Val Kilmer in REAL GENIUS

Some of the best scenes has the flustered kid slowly getting used to Kilmer's devil-may-care attitude... eventually becoming a genuine-team sharing terrific chemistry against the preppy odds in this cult campus comedy...

That, directed by punk-rock guru Martha Coolidge with a soundtrack of techy new wave songs, is far more effective targeting/involving fellow students (like scene-stealing senior weenie Robert Prescott) than what's ultimately yet another Anti-Regan Era political message.