Customer Reviews

The Manhattan Project (Special Edition)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I love this movie. I agree with several of the points made by other reviewers. One, there is a certain amount of suspending disbelief that one must do to enjoy it. Two, and absolutely on the mark, this is a character driven movie, not plot driven. Three, this isn't a movie to be deeply analyzed. It's an 80s movie with witty/sarcastic humor and a plot that works best if you like the main characters. 'War Games' is a better all around movie, but after repeated viewings, I like watching Christopher Collet more than Matthew Broderick (Plus, I can't stand looking at Ally Sheedy, IN ANYTHING!!!). To me, this is an afterschool special-type movie (remember those???). It's weird, but I always watch this movie as if I was 16 years old (which is about how old I was when it came out). I don't even have to try, it just happens. Though 'Real Genius' is funnier and 'War Games' plot and script better, 'The Mahattan Project' has its own special charms that make it worth buying the DVD and watching every few months (depending how many times you've already seen it, that is...)

A decent plot matters - especially in a film like this where the last twenty minutes slowly drift into a string of humdrum sequences. And a decent plot is what this film is capable of - I salute the filmmaker for that. First off,we get Paul,a teen science whiz who puts on his thinking cap when his mother starts dating a man who works at a science research lab. But it ain't jealousy (though that would've made the film a bit more congenial). He wants to know the secret behind the plutonium experiments,which caught his eye the moment he stepped foot into the lab. While on a date with his girlfriend,played by the sultry Cynthia Nixon of 'Sex and the City',they discuss their plan on stealing the plutonium and immediately put their plan into action by going to the lab,despite the heavy rain outside. With a quick thinking mind that drugdes at the snap of your fingers,Paul carefully damages the monitor alarms,leading the security to believe that the havoc is caused by the lightning outside. Of course,the task is completed successfully. From then,Paul creates a bomb from the plutonium (displayed in a rather cartoonish manner,like something from an 80s TV sitcom),believing that it would turn heads at his school science fair. Soon the scientist (John Lithgow) discovers the missing plutonium,which was replaced by a bottle of glitter and shampoo,courtesy of Paul's creative streak. The scientist,appalled,starts a search party for Paul,who's now in New York attending the science fair. They eventually found him and grilled him and his girlfriend in a police station. Luckily,Paul and his girlfriend were soon rescued by their opponents at the fair (never mind the competition - the opponents are at large to win the affections of Paul's girlfriend Jenny,thereby the rescue). And from there,Paul and Jenny hide out for a few days and eventually returns home to find a legion of officers from the lab with guns pointed at them. This is where the climax of the film begins.

'The Manhattan Project' was packed with more wit than I'd thought,which prevented the film from becoming routine. Most of the scenes are displayed in a very realistic manner,though,this is not a style over substance film. Casting Christopher Collet as Paul is a great deal of fair play - he's very underrated,to say the least. But due to the suspense fading towards the end,this may be somewhat tedious for certain tastes. Having said that,this film is by all means,a fairly entertaining way to kill two hours.

Why is it unlikely? If you are holding 99.99% pure Plutonium 239 that could make 70 kiloton Nuclear bombs at a time, would you have only one guard protecting it?

The movie has a lot of merits. John Lithgow is very three dimensional, as a hot-shot scientist that is looking for love. A derivative movie would have made him an egotistical nihilist with no redeeming features. But here he plays a person who you root for, even over the main protagonist at time.

The protagonist is Paul Stephens, played by David Collett. While very bright, he is not shown as a social leper or a total nerd. Cute girls are even attracted to him (portrayed by Cynthia Nixon of "Sex and the City" fame).

If you have a high notion of suspension of disbelief, then you can forgive the idea of a person learning to build a working Atom bomb from reading a few books. And that two kids could easily break into a highly classified research lab. And that scientists could mistake joy dishwater soap for Plutonium for so long.

However, I liked the prepubscent X-files type of conspiracy theme, especially at the Science Fair. Also, the last 20 minutes, where they have to defuse the bomb has surprising intelligence.

Even though this movie is dated (1980's fashion and looks...I can't see this phase making a comeback...And I was a teen through that era!) it is more intelligent and smarter than what Hollywood makes today. While not as good as my favorite smart teen movie (Real Genius), the Manhattan Project does a good job....Rating: B-

When "The Manhattan Project" was first released back in 1986, I was still just a little kid back then. But now, I checked out the film at the video store and I thought that it was so entertaining that it would keep you on the edge of your seat from pulse-pounding start to breathtaking finish! As far as the direction is concerned, Marshall Brickman (screenwriter for "Intersection") directed this film with sheer intensity all the way, and that is what I like about films like this. And as far as the performances go, a lot of the credit goes to John Lithgow ("Cliffhanger"), Christopher Collet ("Prayer of the Rollerboys"), and Cynthia Nixon ("Sex and the City") for their excellent performances. The film focuses on an overachieving high school student named Paul Stephens (Collet), who decides to infiltrate a research lab facility to steal a bottle of plutonium from John Mathewson (Lithgow), a government scientist who is dating his mother (Jill Eikenberry, "Arthur"), in order to make a nuclear device for his science fair with the help of his girlfriend Jenny (Nixon). When word gets out about the plutonium being stolen, the military is being called in to investigate, and Paul is really in for the nightmare ride of his life! And, pretty much, the only person who can help Paul is Dr. Mathewson as they put both their lives on the line in order to keep the device from nuclear annihilation of everyone within a 10-mile radius. In closing, this film has it all! A great cast, superb storytelling, and suspense that doesn't let up for a minute make "The Manhattan Project" one of the absolute best and thought-provoking thrillers of 1986! I simply can't wait for the DVD of "The Manhattan Project" to be released!

Well, since no one out there in cyberspace has come across reviewing "The Manhattan Project", permit me the honor to be the first soul to do so! This flick is a physics freak's dream come true, even though it has a few implausibilities woven into the plot's fabric. Most notably is teen prodigy Paul Taylor's (Christopher Collet) handling of high-grade "hot" Plutonium 235 with hardly any protective gear. Also, one would think that the New York Penta hotel would have been impregnably guarded so as to prevent the boy from evading incarceration & interrogation. However, Paul and his girlfriend "easily" escape with the help of some pathetic science geeks (Please!) On a better note, John Lithgow delivers a superb performance as nuclear physicist Dr. John Matthewson who has instituted a energy research facility in Paul's town and must race against time to help retrieve the boy's demented invention before many lives could face a mushroom cloud wrath. Also notable is Jill Eikenberry as Paul's emotionally high-strung mother whose relationship with Matthewson gives Paul the keys necessary to commence his dangerously egocentric quest to build the better "atomic mousetrap" (only to have the military & the D.O.E. beat a path to his door). Now that I'm aware that director Marshall Brickman was a frequent collaborator with Woody Allen, the writing for "The Manhattan Project" parallels that of a typical Allen film. Namely, it uses a bland bunch of one-dimensional characters always trying to extemporaneously speak in hyperintelligent tongues in order to make dubious sense of Life's many situations (except Lithgow, thank God). The things I truly revere in this flick are all of the laboratory sets and the many hilariously serious anectodes/retorts delivered by Lithgow, Collet, and John Mahoney. All in all, a very entertaining action thriller.

gives one of my all time favorite performances in this movie. I first saw The Manhattan Project on a date when I was in high school, and I was really taken with her droll self-assurance, natural looks and intelligence. As a girl in the 80's, I could hardly identify with dumbbells Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy. Marshall Brickman created an entertaining and admirable part for a young actress. Check her out!

I love this movie. It has interesting characters, a racy plot and some dark humor. John Lithgow stars as Dr. John Mathewson, a hot-shot physicist who is secretly making plutonium for weapons in a facility disguised for medical applications in Ithaca. He has a thing for his landlady and tries to impress both her and her son Paul with his charms. Little does he realize that Paul is smarter than he thinks. Paul quickly figures out the real purpose of the facility during a tour, steals some plutonium with the help of his girlfriend (Cynthia Nixon) and decides to announce the existence of the facility to the outside world with literally a bang by constructing a workable fission bomb and entering it into a high-school science contest. Unfortunately Lithgow and the military realize that the plutonium is missing and are led to a tense and potentially lethal showdown with Paul.

I liked the movie because the characters are not stock. Lithgow is a very three-dimensional person, a charming, sociable and funny scientist who is looking for love, as opposed to a monomaniacal mad scientist who is obsessed with nukes. While the plan that Paul hatches for stealing the plutonium would almost certainly not work in a real situation, it has enough realistic elements to make it sound plausible; for instance he substitutes a bottle of plutonium with identical-looking shampoo and activates the alarms in all the halls by throwing frisbees down them, so the security guard would not know which specific room he is in. He uses a laser to punch a hole in a wall through which he drives the plutonium bottle out of the facility on a remote-controlled toy jeep.

The end of the movie makes some fairly thought-provoking statements on the paranoia of nuclear war and deterrence which would especially have been relevant in the 80s during which the movie was made. All in all, an enjoyable movie that could nicely fill up your weekend evening. Highly recommended.

While the central character in this movie is a teenager, a very smart teenager, it isn't anything like the other "science fair" movies you have seen. True, what the kid does he wants to show at a science fair and the other smart kids there have a bit of a role in the plot in addition to their purpose of adding some color and comic relief.

John Lithgow plays Dr. John Matthewson. A new business moves to town and he befriends Elizabeth Stevens (Jill Eikenberry). He takes a shine to her brilliant teenage son Paul (Christopher Collet). One of the interesting aspects of the movie is the suble way we are shown how bright Paul is and how they use his girlfriend to make him very sympathetic and human. When Paul is given a tour of the facility, he quickly sees through the cover story and decides to expose them. Now, the plan he concocts is quite over the top, but he decides to build his own, small, atomic bomb.

Paul's girlfriend, Jenny Anderman (Cynthia Nixon), helps him by distracting some folks while Paul gets his hands on the key ingredient. Again, what Paul then goes through in attempting to build the device is quite interesting, but not really possible for even a genius without very specialized equipment. It isn't the kind of stuff one can simply build on one's own. But we suspend disbelief for the movie.

Things escalate and the final sequence, of course, involves Matthewson and Paul and a bunch of government types inside the facility. This is where the plot has to ride on our sympathy for Paul. In real life, I would suspect, and in fact I would hope that once the realized that Paul hadn't yet armed his device that they would kill him before he could. But that would be too harsh for a Hollywood movie. One simply doesn't kill good boys who have done something stupid even if they are going to accidentally on purpose blow up an entire city and poison a couple of small states downwind.

Still, it is a pretty good thriller and Lithgow and Eikenberry bring good adult maturity to the story without becoming villains or fools. I enjoyed that. And Collet and Nixon do have a very caring and human relationship. While the movie isn't, in the end, realistic, it isn't a cartoon either.

A quite good movie that still holds up after the cold war. In fact, in our age of terrorism and the threat of suitcase bombs, it probably has an even louder ring to it.

I have fond memories of watching this movie in the mid-80s. I liked it then, and I still like it now. If you can get past the cheesy plot, it is a very enjoyable adventure, with a few valid messages about the dangers of secrecy and nuclear technology. The quality of the video and audio is excellent, but I was disappointed that there were no extras included on this DVD. Regardless, this movie was out of print for quite some time, so it's nice to see it released on DVD. Watch it for the characters and their interaction, but don't expect the plot to be terribly plausible.

This movie, though unrealistic in many aspects, is great and unpredictable. It's not the typical teen movie where the teens are shallow, accomplish nothing and talk exceedingly dirty. This has substance and thrills, and some smart kids to figure it all out! They defy all teenage stereo types. It's awesome! I have a new respect for '80's movies...The Manhattan Project and the Outsides, too...Great Decade in Film! '80's movies are just so out there!

AWW-age 15