Enjoyable enough.

'Flight of the Navigator' features an interesting concept which they bring to life rather well. It isn't anything special and it could've probably been more thrilling, but it still produces a fine 90 minutes. The special effects haven't aged amazing, yet they still suitably serve the intended purpose.

Joey Cramer is good in the lead role as David, while Paul Reubens is fairly amusing as Max. A young Sarah Jessica Parker (Carolyn) also appears. The film doesn't quite hit the intended heartfelt spots with the plot, but there is an element of care for David from me in there minorly; if only at the end.

Decent Disney.

Just re-watched this after reading a Yahoo article on the "10 80's movies that deserve a remake", in lieu of "Maverick's" recent success, and the announcement of "Beverly Hills Cop 4" and "Coming to America" getting the sequel treatment. This was the last one on that list, though IMO it should have ranked higher.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/10-80s-movies-deserve-legacy-111348248.html

Ditto with @Maeron, that this was prolly the most original spacecraft in science fiction, other than the homebuilt "junkship" from "Explorers" (another 80's gem I'll have to revisit) Period SFX still hold up pretty well, in fact, much better than some of the stars of the movie when you look at the current headshots on this page. But then, that's LIFE, which, unlike young David, moves ever forward through time, and then one day suddenly catches us out when we catch a look in the mirror, and, our minds eye doesn't quite sync up with our reflection for a moment.

Intriguing, seeing a teenaged Sarah Jessica Parker, and hearing Pee Wee Herman pre semi-banishment for doing what some grown men did in adult theaters pre high speed internet, and, I can remember working for a company that had similar looking mail robots as the one shown in the film. The height of technology at the time.

@JonThe Mantis - Max wasn't mimicking David, he had actually facsimiled his entire brain when he retrieved the star maps needed to return to his (and the other creatures) home planets, and overwrote David's personality onto his programming. I wonder how the aliens on his home world would have reacted to him when he returned?

Anyway, it's a fun movie, and, I'm glad I gave it a re-watch, even after all these years.

An upper-middle class kid from Miami falls into a dark, spooky ravine, bumps his head and wakes up eight years later, physically unchanged. While undergoing tests at the local hospital, his brain waves hijack the electronic monitoring equipment to display star charts and spaceship schematics. This quickly draws the attention of NASA, who have just captured a matching craft, and they take him in for further evaluation.

I think any kid who came of age in the '80s saw this multiple times, like a rite of passage, so there's a certain amount of nostalgia at play that's tough to overstate. It looks like the '80s, acts like the '80s, most definitely sounds like the '80s, and that feels intrinsically warm and welcoming to middle-agers like me. Hey, I can still remember seeing boxes of Transformers in the kid's temporary bedroom, cheap trinkets to make him feel at-home inside the cold government testing facility, and wishing we could swap places.

Viewing it now, as an adult, I think the aura is nice and enjoyed the entry-level explanation of how light speed travel can cause such weird time paradoxes. But, despite the intriguing premise and challenging first act, the plot doesn't really go anywhere spectacular. All the momentum pushes us toward the ship, yet when we finally climb aboard, there isn't much to see. After ogling all the chrome fixtures, making nice with the AI (voiced by an ascending Paul Reubens) and browsing an onboard zoo of Muppet critters, we just sort of joyride around the country for a little while, dodge a few helicopters and go home. I thought it was building to something more consequential.

This has stood the test of time remarkably well since it was released in 1986. Aside from a rather dated synthesised soundtrack, it's still quite a fun sci-fi adventure. When "David" (Joey Cramer) goes to meet his brother, he slips and bangs his head. Returning home he discovers that, well it isn't his home any more. The police soon reunite him with his parents but where has he been for the last eight years? Scientists decide to prod and poke him, and that's when he discovers they have a space ship - and that ship is calling to him. Once onboard, he realises that he was an experiment that went wrong for the ship's super computer - but can they sort it all out and get the youngster back to the correct timeline before the authorities catch up? There's no jeopardy here, so of course we now what's going to happen - but there are a couple of amiable efforts from the young Cramer, from his partner in crime at the lab "Carolyn" (Sarah Jessica Parker - no less) and Howard Hesseman makes for decent scientist "Dr. Faraday". The story is a simple family-friendly affair, with adequate visual effects as the ship changes shape, travels underwater, at high speed, etc. I like watching this every now and again - it has a inquisitive good-nature to it that makes for a good watch.