4) D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

(2 🤖's out of 5)

"A machine becomes human when you can't tell the difference anymore." 

Director

Simon Wincer

Cast
Barret Oliver - Daryl
Mary Beth Hurt - Joyce Richardson
Michael McKean - Andy Richardson
Kathryn Walker - Ellen Lamb
Colleen Camp - Elaine Fox

Danny Corkill - Turtle Fox

Amy Linker - Sherie Lee Fox

Steve Ryan - Howie Fox

Josef Sommer - Dr. Jeffrey Stewart

In my youth, the 1985 sci-fi movie "D.A.R.Y.L." was a title I often saw on the video shelf in the kids' section of my local video rental place, California Video, back in the early 90s. I distinctly recall the cover showing a boy in some kind of control center watching the Jetsons on a computer screen. However, I've never seen it until now.

"D.A.R.Y.L." is an 80s movie that doesn't quite get the nostalgic attention other movies from the decade receive. 

It stars Barrett Oliver, the kid from "The NeverEnding Story," in the lead role, although he doesn't get first billing in the credits nor on other cast lists for some reason.  

The film opens as a helicopter chases a vehicle driven by a mysterious man with a kid in the back seat. 

He drops the kid off on a rural mountain road, and then tries to lose the helicopter before driving off a cliff.

A couple find the boy wandering the mountains. He seems to have amnesia, but remembers his name is Daryl. They take him into the nearest small town before child protective services pick him up and take him to an adoption center.

He's quickly paired with foster parents, Andy and Joyce Richardson (Michael McKean and Mary Beth Hurt).  

Daryl is a parent's dream come true. He's amazingly polite, incredibly intelligent and intuitive, very likeable, and instantly superior at pretty much everything he does. The kid is a perfect miracle! 

Though he doesn't quite know how to relate with kids his age, Daryl becomes friends with a boy everyone calls Turtle (Danny Corkill). 

Daryl's foster parents and friends are astonished with his amazing effortless skills.

For instance, Turtle and his sister watch as Daryl outperforms both of them while playing the game "Pole Position" on their Atari even though he's never played it before. 

Daryl also excels in baseball, and gives Andy an incentive to put him on the little league he coaches as a "secret weapon" to beat other teams. 

Later, Daryl helps Andy solve an issue with an ATM machine. And when Andy isn't looking, Daryl manipulates the ATM to increase the amount of money his foster dad has in his bank account. 

Barret Oliver as Daryl in "D.A.R.Y.L."

Government officials eventually track down Daryl during a little league baseball game. 

They tell the Richardsons that Daryl's real parents are looking for him and he needs to be returned to them. 

Little do the Richardsons know that the two posing as Daryl's parents are really Dr. Jeffrey Stewart (Josef Sommer) and his assistant, Dr. Ellen Lamb (Kathryn Walker). They're Daryl's creators and programmers. 

But they pretend to be his biological parents and take him back to TASCOM facility in Washington, D.C., to restore Daryl's memory. 

It turns out Daryl is a government-made prototype for an artificially intelligent super soldier, with a microcomputer for a brain. His name is an acronym for "Data-Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform."

Now that he's been found, the government wants to abandoned the project and orders Dr. Stewart to completely destroy Daryl. A military official is sent to oversee Daryl's 

Dr. Stewart thinks that since Daryl relies on his organic body, it's enough to make him a real person. So, he takes a moral stance against destroying Daryl. But the government doesn't care. They want the boy destroyed.

Dr. Stewart sneaks Daryl out of the TASCOM facilities and tries to take him to a safe place. Of course, he and Daryl are chased by military officials and local police.  

Daryl manages to escape, but Dr. Stewart isn't as lucky. Daryl manages to hijack a fighter jet from an air force base and takes off. 

The government now has its crosshairs on the jet which they are going to blow up. But Daryl isn't going to go down so easily. 

It's an innocent enough movie that lacks flavor and excitement. It could have been memorable movie, but much of the writing is too flimsy. 

"D.A.R.Y.L." barely gives its audience any suspense, other than keeping them wondering what Daryl is supposed to be. 

The first half of the movie is predictable and drags on until the movie shifts on a dime, turning into a dark and improbable story. That is, improbable as far as the military being so eager and "cartoonishly" villainous to completely destroy a half-human individual. This movie plays completely by the rules, and follows the basic formula for family entertainment, even with the villainous military trying to destroy Daryl. 

During the first half, it takes a while for something exciting to happen once the movie establishes how intelligent and effortlessly talented Daryl is.  

The movie doesn't really kick into gear until the final act. But I suspect the ending had something cut before being theatrically released. In the final scene, we see Daryl lying unconscious...maybe dead...back at the Richardson's home? And then the scene shifts to him running down the street towards his buddy Turtle. I'm sure something happens between Daryl's unconsciousness to charging down the street. Maybe the writers knew how predictable an ending it was for Daryl to just wake up and go see his pal. So, they cut the middle man and got straight to the resolution. 

What throws me off is the movie's explanation of what Daryl, or D.A.R.Y.L., actually is. I initially thought he was some sort of half robot, half human. In one scene, Dr. Lamp tells the Army General overseeing Daryl's destruction, "A machine becomes human when you can't tell the difference anymore."

Josef Sommer and Barret Oliver.

In another scene, when Dr. Stewart brings in Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, along with Turtle to the TASCOM facility to show them what D.A.R.Y.L. really is, Turtle exclaims, "Holy sh*t! He's a robot?"

Dr. Stewart replies, "He's more than that, Turtle. He's a lot more."

He explains that DARYL was cloned out of genetic material in a test tube with a computer brain. 

However, his name is an acronym for "Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform." So, is he a robot or what? He's a prototype for a super soldier, rather than a full-fledge robot. 

He develops true emotions, feelings and a personality. He's real, or real enough.  

According to IMDB, he's a cyborg. And as a cyborg, he still relies on a human body, respiration, circulation and a heartbeat. The only thing that's computerize inside Daryl is a chip implanted in his brain. 

And the military is hellbent on destroying Daryl no matter what. They ultimately resort to letting him blow up with the self destruct mechanism in the jet he steals. The General remains resolute in the will of the government. Just "let him die." Daryl makes them think they blew him up in order to survive. The movie turns dark really fast. 

Overall, the movie is a cut and dry story with not much excitement to carry the audience through. Barret Oliver does as much as he can with this character that's not given a lot of opportunity to impress the audience. He's just a likeable kid, and that's as far as it goes. The movie is simply too bland all together, even though all the excitement is saved until the end, trying to save this already dud of a movie. 

And by the way, I didn't see the Jetsons anywhere in "D.A.R.Y.L."