Real Genius

When a group of crazy college geniuses put their heads together, almost anything can happen. Hold on for a freewheeling, uproarious look at just how much mischief a bunch of high-IQers can concoct. Chris (Val Kilmer) is the top brain who just wants to party, Mitch (Gabe Jarret) is the 16-year-old whiz kid, and Lazlo (Jonathan Gries), America's number one brain, literally lives in a world of his own ... Chris' closet. Supposedly hard at work on a lab project, they still find time to turn the dorm into an ice-skating rink, dismantle a nerd's car and reassemble it in his room, and throw a beach party in the auditorium complete with a lagoon and bikini-clad beauties. When the geniuses discover that their unscrupulous mentor Professor Hathaway (William Atherton) has had them working on a secret weapon for the military, they plot an elaborate revenge. Their plan culminates in an incredible scheme that outsmarts the military and convinces the professor that it doesn't pay to fool with a Real Genius!

An underrated little picture, Real Genius offers a rare college comedy that doesn't rely on gross-out humor--and a look at Val Kilmer before he turned into a star. A high school whiz kid (Gabriel Jarret) arrives at a brainy college, where the crème de la crème of the science students are marshaled under an ambitious professor (expert villain William Atherton). Unbeknownst to them, the kids are working on a weapons system that the prof plans on selling to the government. The star student, and chief rabble-rouser, is played by Kilmer, in good early form as a cocky genius who hasn't lost touch with his goofy side. The director is Martha Coolidge, whose Valley Girl was one of the brightest (and most unexpected) of '80s comedies; she keeps the movie perking along and never worries about dumbing down a film that just happens to be about smart people. --Robert Horton