''My Science Project'' is a 1985 American

teen Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...

science fiction comedy Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) or comic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the science-fiction (SF) genre's conventions for comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirizes stand ...

film directed by Jonathan R. Betuel. It followed on heels of other teen sci-fi/comedy films released the same year, such as ''

Back to the Future ''Back to the Future'' is a 1985 American science fiction film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas F. Wilson. Set in 1985, ...

'', ''

Real Genius ''Real Genius'' is a 1985 American comic science fiction film directed by Martha Coolidge and written by Neal Israel, Pat Proft, and PJ Torokvei. Starring Val Kilmer and Gabriel Jarret, the film, set on the campus of Pacific Tech, a science ...

'', and '' Weird Science'', though it did not perform as well as those films.

Plot

In 1957, the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...

secures a crashed

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are ide ...

in a hangar bay. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Robert Beer) enters to see the craft and simply orders his men to "get rid of it". In 1985, a high school senior named Michael Harlan ( John Stockwell), whose only interest is

muscle car Muscle car is a description according to '' Merriam-Webster Dictionary'' that came to use in 1966 for "a group of American-made two-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving." The '' Britannica Dictionary'' ...

s, reluctantly searches for something to turn in for his science class project final. While on what his

bookworm Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books. Profile The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...

friend Ellie Sawyer (

Danielle von Zerneck Danielle von Zerneck (born December 21, 1965 in North Hollywood, Los Angeles) is an American actress and film producer. Career von Zerneck began her acting career in commercials and television films. From 1983 to 1984, she played Louisa "Lo ...

) thinks is a date, Michael breaks into a government

aircraft boneyard An aircraft boneyard or aircraft graveyard is a storage area for aircraft that are retired from service. Most aircraft at boneyards are either kept for storage with some maintenance or have their parts removed for reuse or resale and are then sc ...

and stumbles upon a hidden

fallout shelter A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War. During ...

. There, he finds a glowing,

plasma globe A plasma globe or plasma lamp is a clear glass container filled with a mixture of various noble gases with a high-voltage electrode in the center of the container. When voltage is applied, a plasma is formed within the container. Plasma filam ...

-like piece of scientific equipment and grabs it just as a military guard approaches and chases him away. The next day, Michael cleans up the device in auto shop class and unwittingly activates it, causing it to leech power from a nearby

boombox A boombox is a transistorized portable music player featuring one or two cassette tape recorder/players and AM/FM radio, generally with a carrying handle. Beginning in the mid 1980s, a CD player was often included. Sound is delivered through ...

. His friend, Vince Latello (

Fisher Stevens Fisher Stevens (born Steven Fisher; November 27, 1963) is an American actor, director, producer and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Ben in ''Short Circuit'' and ''Short Circuit 2'', Chuck Fishman on the 1990s televis ...

), tries to talk him out of attaching the device to an

automotive battery An automotive battery or car battery is a rechargeable battery that is used to start a motor vehicle. Its main purpose is to provide an electric current to the electric-powered starting motor, which in turn starts the chemically-powered internal ...

, whereupon the device emits a swirl of colorful energy that manifests into an

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

vase as the battery melts. The two leave the auto shop for their next class, but soon realize they inexplicably lost two hours of time and missed their final science exam. After more strange occurrences with the machine, Michael takes the device, referred to as "the gizmo", to his ex-

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

science teacher Dr. Roberts (

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in ''Giant'' (1956). In the next ten years ...

). Believing it is a portal to another dimension, he plugs it into an electrical outlet. While bathing in the cosmic energy of the gizmo and contemplating the wonders of the universe, Roberts suddenly disappears, leaving behind his

peace symbol A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a ''Dove'' lithograph b ...

medallion. Michael is unable to disconnect the machine from the outlet and decides his only solution is to destroy the

power lines Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is d ...

leading to town. Michael and Vince obtain

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germa ...

from the backroom of a hardware store owned by Michael's father (

Barry Corbin Leonard Barrie Corbin (born October 16, 1940) is an American actor. He is best known for his starring role as Maurice Minnifield on the television series ''Northern Exposure'' (1990–1995), which earned him two consecutive Primetime Emmy Award ...

), and race to outrun a wave of energy traveling along the lines before it reaches the local power plant. They blow up a tower, stopping the wave and causing a blackout, but upon returning to town are arrested for Dr. Roberts' disappearance. Michael calls Ellie and asks her to go to the school to retrieve the gizmo, hoping to prove his innocence by showing it to the police. At the school, she runs into Sherman (

Raphael Sbarge Raphael Sbarge (born February 12, 1964) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Jake Straka on ''The Guardian'' (2001–04), Jiminy Cricket / Dr. Archibald Hopper on ''Once Upon a Time'' (2011–18) and Insp ...

), an obnoxious nerd, who hooks the gizmo up to the outlet again, creating a massive time warp over the school and causing a blackout in town, allowing Vince and Michael to escape the police. Returning to the school, they find the whole building consumed in a vortex of space/time as objects and people from the past and future manifest around them and a crazed Sherman, who fears the world is ending and tells them that Ellie is in danger. Dragging Sherman along, Mike and Vince grab weapons from a platoon of fallen

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

soldiers and make their way to the science lab, battling a

T-rex ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosaurus'' live ...

in the gymnasium and a mob of

post-apocalypse Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astr ...

mutant In biology, and especially in genetics, a mutant is an organism or a new genetic character arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is generally an alteration of the DNA sequence of the genome or chromosome of an organism. It ...

s along the way. They reach Ellie and successfully deactivate the gizmo, causing time to return to normal just as emergency crews and police show up. Moments later, Dr. Roberts reappears, rejoicing in an unexpected trip to

Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...

, and proudly gives Michael an "A" grade on his science project under the condition that he gets rid of the machine, saying it's not something mankind is ready for. Roberts is then arrested by the local sheriff (

Richard Masur Richard Masur is an American character actor who has appeared in more than 80 films. From 1995 to 1999, he served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). He is best known for Nick Lobo on ''Rhoda'' (1974-1977), Stanley Uris in th ...

), who thinks he blew up the power lines - as Michael had accidentally left Robert's peace medallion at the hardware store. As promised, Michael returns the gizmo back to the junkyard where he found it. On the way back, the car runs out of gas and he and Ellie leave it by the side of the road; in contrast to his previous devotion to it, he says "It's just a car."

International release

The distributors of the movie in Sweden thought it should be marketed as a mix of ''

Ghostbusters ''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American Supernatural fiction, supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and ...

'' and ''Back to the Future''. It was subsequently renamed ''TimeBusters''.

Reception

The film holds a rating of 11% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 9 reviews.

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

critic

Stephen Holden Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic. Biography Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually be ...

wrote on August 10, 1985; "''My Science Project'' is a cheerful teen-age adventure film that in its snappier moments resembles a far less clever and less expensive ''

''. Despite a plot that has few interesting twists and a shoestring budget, the film glimmers with moments of drollery."

Box office

The film was not a success. On its first weekend, it only peaked at #14 with $1,504,118, averaging $1,499 per theater. It ended grossing $4,122,748 in domestic box-office in its two-week run.

References

External links

* * {{AllMovie title, 34125, My Science Project 1985 films 1985 action films 1985 comedy films 1985 directorial debut films 1980s action comedy films 1980s adventure comedy films 1980s high school films 1980s science fiction comedy films 1980s teen comedy films American action comedy films American adventure comedy films American high school films American science fiction comedy films American teen comedy films Films about time travel Touchstone Pictures films Teen science fiction films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films