I only watched this because Doug Walker said it was in his Top 10 Favorite Disney films. While the movie is certainly fine, I don't think it's great. This movie tells the story of a boy who, one night is knocked unconscious to find out eight years have passed. It's because he was abducted by an alien spaceship causing time to move differently. He doesn't remember what happened. Now, here's the thing that really does bother me about this film.It is literally never explained exactly how or why the boy's memory was erased. Still, this is a finely acted film and I do really like the kid in this. It seems to be partly inspired by ET, a far superior film of course. Some people think the first half is great and the second half is just okay, but I enjoy both parts. It helps that the buildup is so good. I don't know why Paul Reubens was billed as Paul Mill. ***

I saw this film in the cinema theater in my country in 1990 and was so amazed by this science fiction movie so I came to watch it again and again. Flight of the Navigator was not the first movie about traveling in time but arguably was the first to visualize UFO spaceship and hyperspace in a high-quality image. Also the idea that UFO can travel not only in space but in time looked pretty fresh. If you were a part of late 1980-s / early 1990-s you probably remember the interest to all this UFO and paranormal stuff and Flight of the Navigator hit those targets. The film is a family oriented movie made by Disney so anyone can watch it with a big pleasure

I remember catching this on TV as a kid and really liking it. Not much has changed in the years since, as this is still a cool, fun kid's adventure film, perhaps not as in depth or as well made as Joe Dante's EXPLORERS but nevertheless a firm staple of a 1980s childhood.The storyline is split into two halves, and the first half actually turns out to be an intriguing mystery about a boy who suffers a fall in the woods and who wakes up to discover eight years have mysteriously disappeared. Joey Cramer makes for a likable lead; maybe he's not the best actor in the world but I found myself caring about and identifying with his character.After this set-up, the second half lets rip with an exhilarating fantasy set piece in which the lad takes a journey around the world in a really cool-looking UFO. There are some excellent special effects here and plenty of humour thanks to the reliably strange Paul Reubens in a voice performance. It's all very lightweight but no less entertaining because of it. Sarah Jessica Parker turns up in an early supporting role and Veronica Cartwright (ALIEN) is as good value as ever playing the kid's stressed-out mother.

In Florida, 1978, 12-year old David Freeman (Joey Cramer) goes looking for his brother in the woods and accidentally falls into a ravine. He awakes shortly after to find his parents gone from their home, and everything changed. When the police eventually locate his parents and re-unite them, it turns out that they reported David missing eight years ago. He is examined by doctors, but his brain starts to transmit images of an alien spacecraft directly into the computers. When NASA hear about it, they are quick to take David away for further tests, after a craft was discovered crashed into power lines. They soon learn that David's head is filled with information about the outer reaches of space, and David feels like he is being beckoned by something hidden in the confines of NASA.This was an obvious favourite of mine as a child, as it was for many of my generation. Whilst I was re-watching, I was surprised by two things. The first is that I remembered next to nothing about the opening 45 minutes or so, yet as soon as David became the Navigator, it all came flooding back to me. And the second was that I couldn't believe how genuinely good the first half was. Playing out like an early Spielberg sci-fi, where all the grown-ups are suspicious and shady with their suits and broken promises, it builds slowly and is actually quite riveting in parts. The second half, however, although fun, just doesn't play well alongside the mature opening half. It introduces Max (voiced by Pee-Wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens - here named as Paul Mall), who after bonding with David, develops a silly voice and annoying laugh, a la Pee-Wee Herman.It is quite ironic that what I loved about the film as a child is now the thing that I feel ultimately lets it down. Maybe I have become a grumpy old man at the ripe old age of 27. It doesn't completely ruin the film, just brings it down a peg. It's very disappointing, as the need to seemingly dumb down to appeal to a young audience being fed on quality like The Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Crystal and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial around the same period just feels unnecessary. Not that it would have touched on those films, but it still could have been very good nonetheless. But apart from the sudden change of tone, this is a childhood favourite for a reason - it is fun, imaginative, and has a sympathetic hero in Joey Cramer's David. And if a film can survive an early appearance from one of cinema's true monsters, Sarah Jessica Parker, then good on it.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com