Plot: What’s it about?
It’s 1957 and a UFO has crash landed in a hangar bay. President Eisenhower orders the men to get rid of it. We then flash forward to 1985 where we meet Michael Harlan (John Stockwell). While not quite book smart, Michael is a car genius, and that’s essentially his only hobby. There’s an upcoming science project that Michael desperately needs to pass. He’s unsure of exactly what he’ll do it on, but he breaks into a junkyard one night to find some parts for a possible project. Eventually, Michael stumbles onto some strange device that seems to be made of some sort of plasma. As he’s working in the garage the next day, he notices that there’s some power being emitted from it. He tells his buddy Vince (Fisher Stevens) about it, and he agrees to not tell anyone. They soon notice that they’ve jumped ahead two hours in time. Dennis Hopper plays the science teacher, Dr. Roberts who is quick to decipher exactly what the plasma globe does. The film then lays on the special effects and various creatures until Michael and co. can figure out how to stop it.
The film does have a certain charm to it, but it can’t help but feel like a generic rehash of Back to the Future, even though the theatrical release dates weren’t far apart of both films. I also never warmed up to the characters. In all honesty, they started to irritate me after a while. Stockwell speaks in such a monotonous tone that I had a hard time understanding him much of the time. I couldn’t help but wonder how the late John Hughes might’ve handled a film like this. It has an interesting premise to be sure, but quickly loses steam as it goes along. A tighter script and better cast could’ve helped matters there. The effects are also underwhelming much of the time. I imagine budget constraints had a lot to do with it. While not a total dud, there’s just not much here to recommend.
Video: How’s it look?
The film is certainly dated in many aspects, and this transfer shows its age. Having said that, this is probably the best the film has ever looked, so that has to count for something. There’s a fair amount of grain throughout, and sharpness isn’t as nice as I would have liked. Since this marked my first viewing of the film, I can’t compare it to the DVD, but the image still might please fans of the film. I’m sure there are some out there. The image is AVC encoded with a 2.35:1 ratio.
Audio: How’s it sound?
We get a Dolby Digital track that’s fairly basic, but still gets the job done. I had to crank the volume up a bit higher than usual to hear the dialogue more clearly, but once I did, it sounded fine. The film lays on the action in the second half and the track takes off there. While nothing to write home about, the track remains serviceable.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Nada. Zilch. There’s not even a scene index or main menu. The film simply begins to play when loaded into the player.
The Bottom Line
Don’t expect some overlooked gem here. My Science Project is hard to actively dislike, but there’s nothing particularly memorable about the film, either. There are far better films in this genre that I’d place before this one. For the fans of the film, this is as probably as good as it gets. The Blu-ray disc leaves a lot to be desired (was it really that hard to add a scene selection menu?), some fans will just be glad to have this in HD.
