Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its about time this one made it to DVD!, February 17, 2005
I didn't like this film much the first time I saw it back in 1989. I remember the hype surrounding it, because it was the fourth highest grossing film in Australia at the time...but a hit among Australians didn't automatically transfer to American sensibilities. It was just a goofy comedy with some outrageous characters and plot, that featured some awesome Australian music. This is one of those rare films that have grown on me over the years, as I now appreciate its quirky sensibilities and see it as a great tribute to Albert Einstein. Instead of making a film that's a loyal representation of Einstein's life, the director and star, Yahoo Serious (a pseudonym that unfortunately has the shelf life of a fruit fly) created a unique interpretation of Einstein as an Aussie who discovered the theory of relativity by accident when trying to add bubbles to beer; and then he accidentally creates rock and roll music a year later, in the early part of the 1900s. Its seriously goofy fun that no one should take literally. The humour is distinctly Australian, so that might be hard for Americans to appreciate, but for an Aussie-film fan like myself, I love it.
What stands out in this film the most is the choice of songs and how they are used in the film, which is quite exceptional. My favorite being the Icehouse rock anthem tribute to the land down under, "Great Southern Land". The scene it plays in could very well be a rock video, a la Midnight Oil or something. Music really carries this film a great distance from a plot that's not quite so well developed as it should be. Einstein using a guitar to defuse an atomic bomb at an exhibition in Paris, thereby electrocuting himself to cartoonish effect, is the only flaw in this movie for me. That was just too off the wall absurdity that should remain in the cartoon-land of Wile E Coyote...but its the only flaw in this film for me. I don't know if Yahoo Serious is still doing films, but this one pratically guaranteed that he would be forever remembered as Young Einstein...the movie-world's equivalent of a one-hit wonder. With a name like Yahoo Serious...you can't be serious. The only thing this dvd lacks are some special features that would have been nice (especially any music videos and a director's commentary track)...but I'm glad to see it finally made it on dvd, to replace my well worn VHS copy.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Physics Movie of All Time, December 18, 1998
I found "Young Einstein" to be so, so so side-splittingly funny, I almost died laughing. More so, because my wife is an astrophysicist.I think that this movie should be required viewing for all physicists. The scene with the cats in the pie is possibly the #1 or #2 absolute funniest scene in all of movie history, way up there with the best of the Marx Bros, Monty Python, early Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, etc. The fantastic romance of young Einstein and young Marie Curie is one of the most memorable screen romances, up there with Bogie and Katherine Hepburn, Lara and Dr. Zhivago, Cleopatra and Antony, Stella and Stanley, Howard Stern and his wife, Linda Hamilton & the Terminator #2, even the one with Meg Ryan as Einstein's (Walter Matthau) daughter ... Who cares if none of it ever happened in the real world? I'm sure that the real Albert would have fallen off his chair from laughing so hard, if he'd been alive to see this take on his fame and discoveries.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A smart, whimsical comedy, January 28, 2005
Young Einstien was made in 1988 and filmed in Australia. The actor/creator Yahoo Serious plays a young, slightly airheaded young Albert Einstein, whose family quest has been to do something mankind has never accomplished: put bubbles into beer. Naturally, this involves splitting atoms. Albert's father insists he take his new theory, also known as E=mc2, to Sydney and patent it. In Sydney, Albert meets Marie Curie (Odile le Clezio)and is duped by an ambitious Englishman named Preston Preston (John Howard). He must find a way to escape from the mad scientists' ward at the nuthouse and stop Preston from building an atomic bomb. How does he do that? He invents rock and roll!
I first saw this movie when I was a teen--my parents picked it up at the video store and told me I had to watch it. Six years later, with a number of science classes under my belt, I'm enjoying it even more. If you're versed in scientific theory and history, or even if you're not, this film will shine. The theory itself is all fact, but for the twists, and is depicted in a truly understatedly brilliant manner. The mutated theories of the greatest scientists in the history of mankind are melded with Yahoo Serious's sense of slapstick comedy for a product that reaches through to all audiences. If you're looking for a smart, laugh-out-loud movie, I'd highly advise you get this a try.
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