How sad is this?

good back-story, and good acting

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I remember catching this on TV as a kid and really liking it. Not much has changed in the years since, as this is still a cool, fun kid's adventure film, perhaps not as in depth or as well made as Joe Dante's EXPLORERS but nevertheless a firm staple of a 1980s childhood.The storyline is split into two halves, and the first half actually turns out to be an intriguing mystery about a boy who suffers a fall in the woods and who wakes up to discover eight years have mysteriously disappeared. Joey Cramer makes for a likable lead; maybe he's not the best actor in the world but I found myself caring about and identifying with his character.After this set-up, the second half lets rip with an exhilarating fantasy set piece in which the lad takes a journey around the world in a really cool-looking UFO. There are some excellent special effects here and plenty of humour thanks to the reliably strange Paul Reubens in a voice performance. It's all very lightweight but no less entertaining because of it. Sarah Jessica Parker turns up in an early supporting role and Veronica Cartwright (ALIEN) is as good value as ever playing the kid's stressed-out mother.

When I was in kindergarten, I used to go to a place after school. This place would occasionally show us tykes movies. They showed us "E.T.", "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and "The Little Mermaid" a few times. But they also showed us another movie. When someone said the title, it sounded to me like "How to Fight an Alligator". That made no sense to little old me, since I couldn't imagine why anyone would attempt to fight an alligator (I later found out that people DO in fact fight alligators, but I'm not going to try that).Anyway, the scenes that registered in my mind were: the boy looks for his brother and gets scared when someone jumps out of the tree; the boy returns home and finds a different family there; the boy hides in the machine to board the alien ship; the boy says "I promise" and the voice says "Don't know promise"; the boy calls the voice a geek; the voice says "You called me a geek!"; the boy wakes up again in the forest. Overall, I found it as entertaining as a six-year-old would find it.I later learned that the movie's title was "Flight of the Navigator". Now that I'm an adult, I've now seen it again. I found it to be one fun movie, the sort of thing that anyone would love to experience. Obviously I now recognize a young Sarah Jessica Parker. If the director's name rings a bell, it's because he also directed "Grease". I picture Randal Kleiser telling everyone "Respect the people playing the parents. Remember, the dad was in a band that performed with The Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the mom worked with Alfred Hitchcock."* Anyway, a really enjoyable movie. You're sure to love it.*Cliff DeYoung was a member of the '60s group Clear Light, which performed with the aforementioned people. Veronica Cartwright played Rod Taylor's niece in "The Birds".

Joey Cramer, Cliff De Young, Veronica Cartwright and Howard Hesseman star in this 1986 sci-fi film. This starts in 1978, where we meet 12-year old boy, David Freeman (Cramer) and his family. After David is sent by his parents, Bill (De Young) and Helen (Cartwright) to bring his young bratty brother, Jeff home, David is mysteriously sent 8 years into the future by an alien spaceship. David discovers everyone is different accept him and tries to find the answers. Hesseman plays Faraday, a scientist who works for NASA and Paul Reubens plays the voice of alien, Max who helps and travels with David to get home. I've loved this film since I was a kid, Joey is great as David and Alan Silvestri's score is excellent. I recommend this 80's classic.

When young David is kidnapped by aliens (or, to be more precise, a sentient alien spacecraft, and then dropped off 8 years in the future, everything in his life turns to complete horrible. His relationship with every member of his family has changed, not to mention the military finding him to be of extreme interest. If only the spaceship would kidnap him back, and drop off when he came from...This is a family film with an original premise, some terrific special effects (state of the art at the time, and they still stand up well), and excellent central performances, particularly from Joey Cramer in the central role of the biggest film in his short career.This film gets nearly everything right. Although there is comedy (Paul Reuben's voice performance of spaceship Max), it is not overdone. The relationships and reactions are all spot on, and the story really works.Recommended.