Driving by their deep will of achieving justice and peace, two young students, who are geniuses, and make a laser invention for their university, the thing that challenges them, as they know that their professor plans for using their invention in wars, so they do their best to prevent him.
It does make you wonder if the drive of the US education system is ultimately to develop better weapons of mass-destruction, though Coolidge's movie is too hazily good-natured to capitalise on the tougher aspects of the material.
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.
Chicago Sun-Times
January 01, 2000
Real Genius contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it.
