Rotten Tomatoes score: 29%
In my Disney Channel honorable mentions page, I began my review of Up, Up, and Away thusly:
Hollywood continues its systematic campaign to neglect the genius of Robert Townsend with this desperately underrated superhero movie.
It didn't occur to me when I wrote that sentence that it would apply with equal force to The Meteor Man, one of the highlights of my eighth year of life. My friends and I used to invent millions of superheroes. We would draw pictures of them, list all their super-powers, and of course, explain how they became superheroes. These explanations typically involved radiation, lightning, "chemicals," or other lethal hazards, and some sort of object or animal to furnish a basis for the requisite super-costume and super-logo.
This was a movie after my own heart, featuring a hero with a laundry list of extraordinary powers, all supplied by what should have been an extremely fatal injury.
Before I describe the plot, I want to acknowledge that Robert Guillaume, Don Cheadle, Marla Gibbs (from The Jeffersons), Ghost Dad, Wallace Shawn ("Inconceivable!"), Chris Tucker (uncredited), Sinbad (the comedian not the sailor), Frank Gorshin (the Riddler from the Adam West Batman), Luther Vandross, Eddie Griffin, and thousands and thousands of other famous actors appeared in this film.
Jefferson "Jeff" Reed (Robert Townsend) is a substitute teacher at an inner-city elementary school in Washington, D.C. He is kind-hearted and intelligent, but his co-workers and neighbors regard him as a nebbish and a wimp. Jeff's neighborhood has recently been staked out by the Golden Lords, a crack-dealing organization that seems less like a street gang and more like SPECTRE. They bleach their hair blond and wear gold vests and ties, they recruit five-year-old children into their ranks, and their evil leader Simon Caine has a pet tiger.
Jeff would just as soon ignore the Golden Lords and hope they go away, but things change one night when he gets struck by a magic green intergalactic super-meteor from outer space. At first critically injured by the meteor, Jeff miraculously recovers within hours. What's more, he now has a litany of super-powers that would put Clark Kent to shame—in addition to super-strength, hyper-speed, the gift of flight, X-ray vision, heat vision, and freezing breath, Jeff also has psychokinesis, healing powers, rain-making powers, and the ability to talk to dogs.
With some persuading from his neighbors, Jeff agrees to use his powers to rid Washington, D.C., of the Golden Lords once and for all. While he's at it, he brings peace between the Crips and the Bloods, and uses his meteorological talents to grow county-fair-style gigantic produce in the middle of a slum. But Simon's supplier, a drug lord named Mr. Byers, is annoyed at Jeff's interloping and offers two million dollars to any Golden Lord who can bring him the head of the Meteor Man.
But how could the Golden Lords possibly kill Jeff? He has every super-power in the book, and unlike Superman, green space-rocks only make him more powerful. Well, as it happens, Jeff's powers gradually fade away, and when Simon comes a-calling, he has to face him with no more than his new-found courage.
At least, he does until Bill Cosby shows up, playing a drifter who has been carrying around a fragment of the super-meteor in a coffee can. When Jeff and Simon are both exposed to the fragment, a super-duel ensues, and Jeff finally sends the Golden Lords packing—and with the help of the reformed Crips and Bloods, he pulls the plug on the evil Mr. Byers' crack empire.
I think this is a great movie, but I have to acknowledge its shortcomings, particularly the pervading sense that the story isn't quite finished. I read the novelization of this movie, and I was disappointed (and perplexed) to discover that many crucial scenes had evidently been cut somewhere between the screenplay and the finished product. So, I guess if you really want the whole story, you should read the book. Or read the 6-issue Marvel comic mini-series.
Really, gang, you ought to read more. There are so many movies that have children's books based on them, including eight pages of full-color stills from the movie. Expand your horizons.
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