15) Flight of the Navigator (1986)

(4.5 's out of 5)

"Compliance!" 

Director

Randal Kleiser

Cast

Joey Cramer - David Freeman
Veronica Cartwright - Helen Freeman
Cliff DeYoung - Bill Freeman
Sarah Jessica Parker - Carolyn McAdams
Matt Adler - Jeff Freeman (16 years old)

Albie Whitaker - Jeff Freeman (8 years old)
Howard Hesseman - Dr. Louis Faraday
Paul Mall (aka Paul Reubens) - voice of Max 

Disney's 1986 sci-fi adventure film, "Flight of the Navigator" is a movie I loved in my youth. 

I had the impression it was a movie not too many people noticed. If that was the case years ago, it seems to have been pulled from the ranks of minor obscurity where a number of Disney movies from the 1980s remain. It is a much appreciated and fondly remembered movie now, looked fondly upon with nostalgia. 

That certainly isn't the case with some of their other movies which Disney probably wants to keep hidden under the secretive Disney vault rug such as "Midnight Madness," and "The Devil and Max Devil" which I've mentioned before. 

The story begins in 1978, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., as 12-year-old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) and his family are set to celebrate July 4th on their boat out in the water where they'll shoot off some fireworks. 

David has to go fetch his kid brother, Jeff (Albie Whitaker) at his friend's house. 

Walking through a wooded area, Jeff scares him by jumping out of a tree and then runs home. Before going home himself, David peers into a ravine, falls in and is knocked unconscious. 

Joey Cramer as David in "Flight of the Navigator."

When he wakes up and returns home, someone else is living in his house. His own family is nowhere to be found. 

David doesn't know that the year is 1986 and that he has been missing for eight years. 

When police reunite him with his family, he's shocked to find his family has aged, but he's still 12. His younger brother, Jeff, is now older than David. 

Meanwhile, an alien ship crashes into some power lines. NASA confiscates the ship and brings it back to the space center in Florida. 

While in the hospital for observation, doctors notice his brain wave patterns are creating images that match the design of the downed space craft. His brain is also filled with star charts.  

Dr. Louis Faraday (Howard Hesseman) over at NASA is told about the images coming out of David's head. He persuades David's parents to allow their son to spend 48-hours at NASA for observations, promising them he'll get answers as to where David has been the last eight years, and why he hasn't aged a day. 

By examining David's brain waves, Dr. Faraday and other NASA scientists deduce that the boy was taken to the planet Phaelon 560 light years from Earth. 

To get there, the ship travelled faster than the speed of light for over two hours. Time passed slowly on Earth causing everyone to age normally. For David, the trip was only a couple hours causing him to barely age at all. 

Faraday is going to need to break his 48-hour promise and keep David there longer.

The ship starts to telepathically communicate with David. 

He manages to sneak out of his room at NASA, thanks to the help of NASA intern Carolyn McAdams (Sarah Jessica Parker - yeah, she's in this), make his way to the hanger where the ship is being kept, and sneak onboard. 

David meets the ship's robotic commander (voiced by Paul Reubens, aka Pee-Wee Herman, who is credited as Paul Mall), which introduces itself as a Trimaxion Drone Ship. David calls the robot commander "Max" for short. 
And Max makes David the navigator. 

Max says that since humans use only 10 percent of their brains, he took David aboard to keep additional information needed for an experimental project inside his brain. Max has been travelling the spans of the galaxy to collect specimens from other planets. 

David agrees to undergo a mind transfer so Max can collect the information in his head. This introduces Max to human emotion and behavior. 

The two travel around the world, and out into space, as David tries to get back to his family.  

He wants to return to his own time when he was picked up. But Max thinks going back into time could prove deadly. 

"Flight of the Navigator" starts off on a serious, dramatic tone and then shifts into an adventure. 

It glides along the realm of goofiness, especially when Max transfers information from David's mind and starts speaking like Pee-Wee Herman. 

David also adopts one of the alien species called a Pukemaron collected on board the ship as his own personal pet/ sidekick. There's also a music sequence with "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys which might have been hip, or rad, or cool back in the 1980s. It's a sequence that didn't age well. Cheesy! But I'm happy to look past all that.

Thankfully, the silliness knows when to say when. In other words, the silly factor doesn't overstay its welcome. It entertains the kids in the audience for as long as it needs to, and then jumps back into the serious mode it needs. 

Joey Cramer gives a respectable performance. This works especially when his world is changed drastically completely at random, and he cannot wrap his head around why his life has changed. 

He makes David a sympathetic, memorable and very likeable character. It doesn't surprise me that fans of the movie have flocked to him at conventions and appearances all these years later.  

It's a well-performed fun family movie with decent special effects and a tight theme on the importance of family.

I don't know if "Flight of the Navigator" was an obscure sci-fi movie. Like a lot of movies from the same decade, it has since had a resurgence among nostalgic fans thanks to its inclusion on the streaming app, Disney+ as well as the 2020 documentary, "Life After the Navigator."

The "Trimaxion Drone" ship from "Flight of the Navigator" on
display at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World.

photo by Mike Sellman

Joey Cramer had a fall from grace after various arrests including one in 2016 in connection with a bank robbery up in Canada. But it looks as though he has amended his rough past and embraced the joy and thrill the now 38-year-old movie continues to give audiences. Kudos to Joey Cramer!

It's an innocent movie with a captivating plot. It's likeable. And like most off-the-radar movies, especially from Disney, "Flight of the Navigator" has its cult following. This following is well deserved.

Randal Kleiser has directed some favorited movies - "Grease," "The Blue Lagoon." "White Fang." and "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid." Not great films but enjoyed never-the-less. 

I give "Flight of the Navigator" a high rating due to its enjoyability, emotion, innocence, complexity alongside its simplicity, warmth, respectable special effects, and depictions of the importance of family. 

I recall seeing the Trimaxion Drone ship from "Flight of the Navigator" on the backlot tour at Disney World's Hollywood Studios back in 2014. I wondered if I was the only person on that tram who recognized it and knew where it was from. I'm sure I wasn't but I like to think I was. 

There has been chatter online about a reboot. Selfishly, I want "Flight of the Navigator" to remain that smaller innocent film I enjoyed time and time again so many years ago.