The Manhattan Project (1986)

I don't understand why this movie is so lowly rated. The movie has a really good plot, and I really like how there is even a little comedy combined with the movie's serious plot. The part in the beginning, where he steals from the government building is a little slow, I think because it didn't have much lines to back it up, but the movie picks-up when he actually starts to build the nuclear device. I wonder if the more comical moments had come from John Lithgow's roll in all of this. I especially like his jokes about the government works.

"They're gorillas, they can hurt you. If you try to talk it out with them, they'll lock you in a room somewhere and throw away the room."

"What did you want us to do, put up a neon sign saying 'secret weapons laboratory'?"

The Science Fair moments in the movie were also quite entertaining. Especially where they introduce themselves to the science fair kids, then when they get out with the same kids pulling them out of the room and resoling them out away from the government's agents.

The movie itself is somewhat unbelievable, but it's interesting and entertaining.

Fmovies: "The Manhattan Project" is a fairly entertaining movie, so long as you keep it out from under a microscope. Still, those holes are inescapable. Like how did Paul get the resources to fashion a nuclear lab? More than that, how would a high-schooler know how to handle radioactive materials? Can' really sweep that under the "he's a bright kid" rug; we're talking about resources (or maybe it's completely plausible; hell, I'm not a whiz kid). And didn't any Medatomics personnel notice that four-week-old hole in the wall? Putting that all aside, I kinda like this movie. Mostly because I'm a Lithgow fan, and the big bomb defusal scene packs some suspense. But also for superficial reasons, like Cynthia Nixon's house. And the locations, there's some pretty scenery here.

6/10

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is a seriously underrated film. It's categorized and advertised as a "comedy," but in fact it's more accurately categorized as a dramatic thriller with light elements. The problem is that anyone expecting to see a comedy will be disappointed because the film is not as funny as a "comedy" needs to be. That, I believe, is why it was not as popular at the box office as it deserved to be. However, the film is an extremely smart dramatic thriller, and anyone screening it with that expectation -- and knowing its main characters are extremely bright high school kids -- will not be disappointed. THE MANHATTAN PROJECT is not a perfect film, but it is an excellent one.

The Manhattan Project fmovies. If the beauty of film is that it encourages us to briefly suspend our disbelief and enjoy experiencing a different world, The Manhattan Project simply demands too much suspension of disbelief to make this possible.

Almost every plot point in The Manhattan Project is an absolute impossibility in real life, even though the dramatic power of this film ostensibly derives from the notion that something remotely like this could really happen. From nuclear radiation triggering detectors without hurting people, to a single rent-a-cop defending an entire nuclear weapons lab, to one teenager doing in a month what took Oppenheimer and company years, to the U.S. military letting national security breaches walk away into the sunset, there is just no way to focus on the story when faced with so many intellectual insults.

On the bright side, the science in the movie is presented well and seems fairly accurate, so it does seem like the filmmakers at least tried to make something special out of an insufficient screenplay. The Manhattan Project is not a terrible movie, but it does suffer from too many inexcusable lapses to be called good. Just like the most realistic character in the movie, this film is a bomb.

This film is entertaining enough, in fact it is quite exciting. However, in a real-life scenario, the end result would not and could not have had such a clichéd "Hollywood ending", so in that respect it sort of resembles a "fractured fairytale". The storyline is credible enough with a bit of imagination stretching, the acting is tolerable, only the irony is laid on a bit too thick. I found the attitude of the principal character to be much too cynical, unrealistic and extremely condescending, even for the likes of some precocious, science-savvy prodigy. Getting back to the entertainment value, the plot progresses expectedly only it thickens toward the direction of the surrealistic, though the basic concept is actually pretty frightening. However, the movie is watchable with its impressive cast; a young Cynthia Nixon, John Lithgow, Chris Collet et al. I have mixed feelings about this film, I did enjoy watching it, but when I began to rationalize it began to appear quite nonsensical. So, if you intend on watching it, simply keep your powers of logic and common sense subdued and it will remain an enjoyable experience.