Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1997
Star Kid
Buy Star Kid now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Star Kid' (originally titled 'The Warrior of Waverly Street') is a 1997 American superhero film directed and written by Manny Coto and starring Joseph Mazzello, Richard Gilliland, and Corinne Bohrer.
Plot
The life of shy, seventh-grader Spencer Griffith, who has a crush on a schoolmate named Michelle, changes one night when he sees a mysterious meteorite, as it crashes down into a nearby junkyard. Sneaking out of his house to investigate, he discovers the meteorite to actually be a small rocket carrying a "Cyborsuit.", a prototype exoskeletal-suit with AI (short for Artificial intelligence) from another galaxy. He decides to try it on and melds with it, but requires some time to adjust to the experience, including the new speed and strength, and then starts testing out the suit's various primary functions and abilities, deciding to call it "Cy". He proceeds to go around town doing whatever he wants, starting with getting back at a bully from school named Turbo, then saving Michelle and her friends from a damaged Rock-O-Plane and ordering food from a fast-food restaurant drive-thru. He also endures the hilarious antics of trashing part of his house after getting his head stuck inside of the refrigerator, discovering the unappealing way that the suit will allow him to eat his ordered drive-thru food, and finding a way to pee when Cy won't let him out to do it.
Meanwhile, Earth is visited by a Broodwarrior, a member of an alien race of world-conquering insectoids that are currently waging a war against the suit's creator, Tenris De'Thar, and his fellow Trelkins, who developed the suit as a weapon to turn the tide of the war, but was forced to launch it into space due to a Broodwarrior attack. The Broodwarrior's mission is to find and capture the suit so his race can analyze it. After first encountering the Broodwarrior, Spencer escapes, forces Cy to eject him out of the suit, and abandons it, afraid he might not "live to see his next birthday" if he "engages" the Broodwarrior. Back home, after looking over one of his comic books titled 'MidKnight Warrior' and thinking about what the title character, in his situation, would do, he goes back out to find Cy. He unexpectedly finds himself accompanied by Turbo, who gradually becomes his friend, only to find the Broodwarrior has taken Cy. They head to the junkyard, where Cy is about to be taken off-world by the Broodwarrior, and create a plan to distract it long enough to allow Spencer to rescue Cy. Spencer retrieves Cy and begins battling the Broodwarrior.
During the battle, the Broodwarrior gets the upper hand, and the suit is bashed multiple times by the Broodwarrior's mace, severely damaging it, and forcing Cy to eject Spencer before it goes completely offline. Spencer covers it with scrap metal to hide it from the Broodwarrior, takes a piece of it, and continues to fight the Broodwarrior, who had started trying to chase down Turbo. Spencer confronts the Broodwarrior before getting chased himself and is suddenly cornered inside a junked ice cream truck. Just when the Broodwarrior is about to dispose of Spencer, Turbo finds a control panel and activates the car crusher the truck is sitting in, revealing the chase into it to be part of a trap. Spencer escapes while the truck is compressed into a solid metal cube, killing the Broodwarrior.
With the Broodwarrior now destroyed, the boys return to Cy but it appears that they were too late to save it. Just as Spencer begins to lose hope, Tenris De'Thar and a small group of Trelkin soldiers appear from a giant UFO orbiting Earth and quickly repair it, reviving it. After Cy and Spencer say goodbye to one another, the head alien soldier gives Spencer a badge for his bravery and courage before their departure back to their home-world, and the long, eventful night finally comes to an end. The next day at school, a now confident Spencer, encouraged by Turbo, starts up a conversation with Michelle.
Cast
*Joseph Mazzello as Spencer Griffith
*Richard Gilliland as Roland Griffith
*Corinne Bohrer as Janet Holloway
*Alex Daniels as "Cy"
**Arthur Burghardt as "Cy" (voice)
*Joey Simmrin as Manfred "Turbo" Bruntley
*Brian Simpson as the Broodwarrior
*Ashlee Levitch as Stacey Griffith
*Jack McGee as Hank Bruntley
*Danny Masterson as Kevin
*Lauren Eckstrom as Michelle Eberhardt
*Bobby Porter - Nath the Trelkin
*Larry Nicholas - Tenris De-Thar the Trelkin
*Rusty Hanson - Trelkin
*Terry Castillo - Trelkin
*Christine Weatherup - Nadia
Production
The film was part of an effort by Trimark to enter into larger films. At the 1995 American Film Market, the film was positioned as Trimark's flagship product when it was previewed to foreign distributors under its original title, 'The Warrior of Waverly Street'
Release
The film grossed a domestic total of $7,029,025, making it a box office bomb from its estimated $12 million budget.
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 43% with an average rating of 5.37/10 based on 14 reviews. In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert (who gave it 3 out of 4 stars) said "'Star Kid', written and directed by Manny Coto, has a sweet heart and a lot of sly wit, and the symbiosis between boy and cyborg is handled cleverly. For kids of a certain age, it pushes the right buttons."Home media
In the United States, the film was released on VHS and DVD format in 1998. It was also released on VHS in the UK and is now available on DVD.[http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/star-kid.html Star Kid (UK - DVD R2) in News > Releases at DVDActive]Soundtrack
All tracks (with the exception of the first two tracks) were composed by Nicholas Pike. The soundtrack was released on compact disc by Sonic Images (January 27, 1998) and further released for download through BSX Records (January 29, 2013) with modified cover art.
Comic
A prequel was released in comic book form, written by Manny Coto with art by John Stokes. It was published by Dark Horse Comics.[http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=96-843 Dark Horse Comics > Profile > Star Kid]
See also
*List of films featuring powered exoskeletons
References
Buy Star Kid now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1997