
Real Genius as we now know is pound for pound the greatest Val Kilmer movie of all time. Go ahead, name a better? Val Kilmer might have entered a different weight class, but try to harken back when he was a young genius with the world ahead of him. A world full of five megawatt chemical lasers and t-shirt wearing boy geniuses. A world full of lovely Jordan Cochrans and sexy Deborah Foremans.
And that leads us to the Wonders of Death Rays:
Mythbusters did an episode that recreated the famous popcorn exploding house scene. But sadly with miniatures. There experiments showed a laser could pop a popcorn kernel, but the expanded popcorn kernels could never burst through glass and wood. Instead the popcorn simply burned. But I don’t have a problem with the popcorn demolished home, or the invention of the 5 megawatt laser (a laser several magnitudes more powerful than any laser in actual existence even today). The only problem I had with it was that it was unsanitary… parents, don’t let your children frolic in strange glass filled popcorn. My problem is from earlier… no, not Jordan’s attraction to Mitch.
What is the quickest path from point A to point B? A straight line… which is exactly the course the laser tore through campus. What I had a problem with was when Val first fired up the laser and it cut a path through the school. The laser cut through the brick target and the wall and building and a statue and a tree, all the way to a hamburger joint on the other side of the quad. Where the wacky gang joyfully ate hamburgers with little regard to the carnage they caused. If a laser can burn a perfect hole through an oak tree or a metal statue, it probably wouldn’t have a problem cutting through a person. How many students had to die to feed Val Kilmer’s ego? Campus security at the very least would have questions about the holes appearing all over school.

They didn’t care about the random students in the path of the laser.

Or the Dean’s prized cockapoo.

Or Ken.

Or even Jordan.
The first thing I would have thought was, I hope I didn’t kill a bunch of people, not I could really use a hamburger. And not only do they not realize that half the campus is dead, but they don’t even realize that they invented a weapon. These were supposed to be geniuses and they couldn’t figure out a laser that burns through a college could be used for something bad. And when they do realize it, what’s the only logical course of action? Blowing up a house with popcorn because as we all know the government really respects madcap hijinks.
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