Real Genius

TriStar Pictures | Release Date: August 7, 1985

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

71	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Salem Alaton

Real Genius is great, the freshest, most insouciant Hollywood inspiration since Risky Business. Director Martha Coolidge was handed a fleet cast and a well- oiled screenplay and she plumb took off. The darn thing works so well it fairly sings. [12 Aug 1985]

Scott Tobias

Martha Coolidge's bright, whimsical Real Genius can credit part of its substantial and richly deserved cult following to the fact that nothing has changed: Raunchy, lowbrow teen comedies are forever in vogue, and SDI is still an impossible, money-sucking political mirage. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

It's a brisk, smart satirical comedy from the writers of "Police Academy" and the director of "Valley Girl," set in a Caltech-like institution for the whiz kids of the sciences. How refreshing it is to see young people depicted as having a capacity for thought as well as emotion. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Real Genius contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it. Read full review

Gene Siskel

Real Genius is packed with characters and jokes, easily containing three times as many attempts at humor as other summer comedies this year. Frequent moviegoers will appreciate the extra effort. [9 Aug 1985, p.A]

Lee Siegel

Hysterical. [26 Aug 1985]

Paul Attanasio

Fabulously acted and written with zing and zong, it's one of the few enjoyable movies of the summer. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

What lifts the production above the run-of-the-mill is swift direction by Martha Coolidge, who has a firm grasp over the manic material. Read full review

Janet Maslin

What the film needs, instead of these familiar teen-movie trappings, is a cleverness and eccentricity to match that of its characters. For the most part, these are qualities that it lacks. Read full review

It's a change to see young folk are more obsessed with technology than the promptings of the trouser department, but the gizmo-heavy hi-jinks (fun with helium, frozen gas and other science-class materials) do outstay their welcome. Read full review

Dave Kehr

The humor is relentlessly cruel, smug, and disconnected from any sense of how human beings might behave in similar situations. But though she's hardly able to dominate the project, director Martha Coolidge does manage to insert some of the sweetly eccentric characterization that distinguished her Valley Girl: one of the heroes, played by Gabe Jarret, is actually believable and sympathetic as a socially insecure adolescent, and a few of the minor figures are brought to life with deft, simple strokes. Though ultimately obnoxious, the film lingers in the mind for a few moments of genuine charm. Read full review

David Ansen

Of the three, Real Genius comes tantalizingly close to being a real, and interesting, movie. If only Coolidge weren't hemmed in by the formulaic plot. [26 Aug 1985, p.62]

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

While the characters are fairly offbeat and interesting, the film is weighed down by some tediously handled camp intrigue, political skullduggery, and $2 million worth of special effects. Read full review

Bill Cosford

The director was Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), about whom people have been using the word "potential" for a decade or so. Trapped inside Real Genius, there's a real director trying to get out. [7 Aug 1985, p.D5]

Rita Kempley

Many of the scenes, already badly written, fail to fulfill their screwball potential. Real Genius should be applauded as a higher class of passage movie. But despite its enthusiastic young cast and its many good intentions, it doesn't quite succeed. I guess there's a leak in the think tank. [9 Aug 1985, p.19]