Review: Flight of the Navigator

Joey Cramer plays a 12 year-old in 1978 who finds an alien spaceship and is taken away, returning home after what he thinks was just a few hours, but is in fact, eight years later. His parents (Veronica Cartwright and Cliff De Young) are suitably alarmed to find their son hasn’t aged at all, ditto Cramer’s annoying kid brother who is now several years older than him! And then NASA doctor Howard Hesseman gets wind of the situation and takes Cramer (and the spaceship) in for study, with some frustration and resistance by his parents. They find that Cramer has a whole lot of intergalactic data stored inside his head! Sarah Jessica Parker plays a Twisted Sister-loving teen who works as an orderly, and attempts to help Cramer escape to his worried family.

If you see only one “E.T.” rip-off/variant in your lifetime, make it this highly enjoyable 1986 Randal Kleiser (“Grease”, “The Blue Lagoon”) film, one of the first films I ever saw in cinemas. Like a lot of childhood favourites, 38 year-old me can concede that it may not be a great film, but it still means something to me nonetheless. It’s interesting that this was one of my first cinema-going experiences and a positive one, because looking at the plot from a 2018 perspective…this is actually founded on some rather dark and disturbing stuff. This comes from a guy who had to be taken out of the cinemas screaming the year previous for “Return to Oz” (which is still disturbing at age 38), and even one of my now favourites, “The Goonies”. This, I stayed ‘til the end, but now I have to admit I’m surprised by how disturbing it is. I mean, yes it’s also very “E.T.” with the boy’s sci-fi/adventure stuff and the NASA characters here are pretty similar to the Peter Coyote scenes in “E.T.”, but it’s still founded on an idea of a kid who goes out one night, and comes back home to find that eight years have passed and he’s the only one who hasn’t aged in all that time! It’s almost “Unsolved Mysteries” territory, really. This isn’t a complaint. In fact, the first half of the film is probably what gives this film its intrigue and different mood. The second half is basically “E.T: The Spaceship Ride”, much less ambitious, if certainly very entertaining.

Joey Cramer, who has sadly fallen on hard times in recent years and is currently serving hard time, is excellent here. He’s not only a very relatable and likeable kid, but his tears early on when he can’t work out what is going on and can’t find his way ‘home’ is some genuinely effective child acting. It’s a shame his career never panned out because here he shows an aptitude for handling some pretty big, emotional scenes. The offbeat casting of Veronica Cartwright (known for several roles in the sci-fi genre like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Alien”) and Cliff De Young (no great actor, but certainly a versatile one) is really effective as well. They’re believably nice, all-American parents but their reputations as actors might also have you checking them over a bit as well. Howard Hesseman is a more outwardly genial-looking presence, and he’s given the Peter Coyote role of the somewhat ruthless, but not villainous NASA scientist. A young-ish Sarah Jessica Parker has one of her best roles here as a pink-haired NASA orderly who is the only person in the building willing to relate to Cramer as an actual human being. She’s terrific and kinda cool as she tells the kid all about this new MTV thing he’s missing out on, even if there’s no way she or anyone with pink hair is a Twisted Sister fan. Shout out to young Albie Whitaker as Cramer’s younger brother, who has the most hilarious facial expressions during one crucial moment in the film.

I also have to give a bit of praise to the FX team, for although there’s some rather dodgy projection work the UFO itself is probably one of my all-time favourites in design. It’s a slick clamshell looking thing, and the interiors still impress in 2018. We also get some pretty decent alien puppets in one scene, with a collection of bizarre alien creatures unlike anything you’ve seen before or since. A pretty good FX job overall for 1986 I must say. As for the voice of ‘Paul Mall’ (AKA Paul Reubens) voicing the ship, this time around I have to confess I didn’t detect too much Pee-wee Herman, something that had previously annoyed me. For the most part you can’t even tell it’s Paul Reubens and he’s quite palatable for a change. All of the scientific mumbo-jumbo the NASA scientists deliver has obviously dated a bit, but it’s still interesting stuff. On the downside, the film is short, which while I’m glad it’s not a long film, you do get the feeling that this isn’t a film of two halves or one whole. The first part of the film is much longer, and the two parts of the film certainly are a tad lumpy when put together. The first part is the more interesting part to me as an adult, and the second part is the fun kids movie we all paid our money for in the first place. Both parts entertain, it’s just that they do indeed come off as parts. Still, it’s a fun film overall so it’s hardly worth taxing the film all that much. Is the finale a convenient quasi-deus ex machina? Yes, but by then you’ve already gotten your money’s worth. The synth pop score by Alan Silvestri (“Back to the Future”, “Forrest Gump”) is one of the best of its kind, and you’ll hear elements of it turn up again repurposed in themes for the electric guitar score Silvestri provided for “Young Guns II”. Here you’d swear Giorgio Moroder was the composer, but nonetheless it works.

They’re apparently planning on remaking this film. I’d advise them to plan something else and leave this highly enjoyable family movie alone. No one’s going to tell you that this is on the level of “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial”, but it’s a damn good family movie somewhat inspired by that film. Cramer is excellent. I hope he turns his life around. The screenplay is by Michael Burton (“Shoot to Kill” AKA “Deadly Pursuit”) and Matt McManus (his only credit to date).

Rating: B