Real Genius (1985)

This was another Kilmer movie that I hadn't really heard of prior to the launch of TKP. I've learned from some friends, however, that this movie is regarded in the pantheon of classic 80s teen comedies. It's easy to see why. This movie has at least one training montage with an 80s ballad playing over it.

The premise is that a bright but helplessly nerdy 15 year old overachieves his way into a prestigious college's science department on a scholarship. He's tasked with working on a high power laser project that has hit a couple roadblocks in its development. He is intensely committed and quickly bests his older syncophantic co-researchers.

His roommate (Val Kilmer) is a wild, loose cannon, party animal type who refuses to live up to his obvious potential. It's a character that was reprised in the 90s by Jeremy Piven in "PCU" and in 2002's "Van Wilder" by Ryan Reynolds. Kilmer, being the broseph that he is, reaches out to his incredibly nerdy new lab partner/dormmate and teaches him all the joys irresponsibility: flirting with girls, turning a lecture hall into a swimming pool, using science to turn your dorm hallway into a sheet of ice, etc. It's essentially the same character he played in Top Secret but a little more excitable and the ability to science exclusively for the purposes of recreation.

We learn early on that their professor is schilling his lab work for a defense contractor who is going to turn his laser into a killing machine that blasts people from space. An expensive and bizaare 1980s boondangle made commonplace by another actor. Kilmer's incessant partying leads to his almost-expulsion from college when the laser weapon isn't ready in time. This leads to a training montage as Kilmer studies his ass off and finds a new way to make the laser work (because he's a 'real genius'?).

The final act of the movie is an insane plot twist in which the professor takes his death ray to the military to be tested (no peer review? what sort of clown college is that anyway?). Kilmer and his still hopelessly nerdy and awestruck roommate concoct a zany scheme, featuring a cameo by an early version of the internet, to stop the villainous military-industrialists. They sneak onto the military base and reroute the laser to blow up their teachers house [with popcorn(?!)] thus saving humanity from its warlike urges and ushering in an unending era of peace and prospertiy that continues unabated to this day.

For an 80s staple this movie has almost none of the classic songs of that era. I don't know how they got stuck with all the no-hit-wonders but I hadn't heard any of these songs before. Still, it followed a lot of 80s tropes and probably raised Kilmer's profile more than Top Secret.