For some reason, 1985 was the year of teen comedies steeped in fanciful science-fiction themes. The most successful of these was Back to the Future, and right behind that was Real Genius (starring Val Kilmer) and Weird Science (Anthony Michael Hall). Straggling far behind in terms of imagination, quality, and star wattage was My Science Project, a self-conscious lark with an underbaked premise and cheesy special effects.
Written and directed by Jonathan R. Betuel, who hit the jackpot when a Hollywood bidding war erupted over his original screenplay for the 1984 The Last Starfighter, My Science Project underscores how selling one in-demand script does not automatically qualify one to helm a feature film. Essential questions about the story (who? what? why?) are neither asked nor answered, leaving the whole enterprise vague and poorly papered over with wisecracks. It doesn’t help that the lead, John Stockwell (who went on to have a respectable career as an actor), doesn’t have enough of a character to sink his teeth into, rendering him dull.
Stockwell plays a high school kid, Michael, whose first love is muscle cars. Obliged to come up with a science project before he can graduate, Michael scores when he comes across an extraterrestrial gizmo that saps electrical energy from machines and wires. The device spews a lot of colorful lights, but it’s a long time before we get a fix on what it actually does: dissolve barriers in space and time. One might expect that to look like something special, but it doesn’t, confining the film’s minimal razzle-dazzle to a T-Rex, some Vietnam vets, and other random stuff. Crossing dimensions and into our world.
Actor Fisher Stevens is on hand, visibly uncomfortable, as Vinnie, Michael’s friend and smart-aleck sidekick. But even with Stevens, all of this just fizzles like an abandoned experiment. The film’s only redeeming quality is a small role for Dennis Hopper, who proves agreeable to Woodstock and Easy Rider references. Not recommended.