2 days Ago By Chris Morgan, Yardbarker
The death of Val Kilmer at the age of 65 has of course led to an outpouring of memories replete with praise of performances and films. Maybe you best remember him for his action stardom thanks to movies like "Top Gun," "Batman Forever," and "The Saint". He disappeared into biopic roles as Jim Morrison in "The Doors" and Doc Holliday in "Tombstone.
" The latter of those two is, pound-for-pound, his best dramatic performance. However, if you go back to the beginning of Kilmer's career, it becomes clear that he had a tremendous knack for comedy. With his facility for deadpan quips, had the actor been so inclined, he may have been his generation's answer to Bill Murray.
This is true both in terms of restrained-anarchy-infused comedic chops, but also both their reputations for being difficult to work with. Kilmer's very first film was "Top Secret!," and he also happens to be the star of it. The 1984 film came to us from the famed "ZAZ" comedy team of Jerry Tucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker.
It falls smack-dab between 1980's "Airplane!" and 1988's "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!." Those guys sure did love exclamation points. This is, of course, an anything-for-a-laugh, gag-a-second spoof movie.
It's both a send-up of Cold War spy movies and also Elvis films. Kilmer plays Nick Rivers, an American musical sensation who embarks to East Germany during a clandestine attempt to reunify the country. Granted, the plot matters little.
It's all absurdist jokes, including Rivers' hit song "Skeet Surfin'," strung together with aplomb. While not as successful as other ZAZ efforts in its time, "Top Secret!" is reasonably considered a cult classic. It comes to us from the time when the actors in ZAZ movies were still devoted to playing it all seriously to service the jokes, something that was lost as Leslie Nielsen hammed it up in "Naked Gun" sequels and threw the ecosystem out of whack.
Kilmer's deadpan performance serves the film to a tee, as does his comedic timing. He does it all with a "movie star" presence as well, a necessity for an Elvis-adjacent spoof. Even better, though, is 1985's "Real Genius.
" Directed by Martha Coolidge, the film is a campus comedy akin to the "slobs vs. snobs" offerings indicative of the era, but it greatly benefits from the fact the "slobs" in question are impish math and science geniuses at a prestigious California college, as opposed to the usual gaggle of deranged, amoral individuals that serve in that role. Kilmer is the co-lead, but he shoulders the load given that he was paired with Gabriel Jarret, a teenager who would go on to have a character actor's career, but was no star.
Kilmer's Chris Knight serves as Jarret's Mitch Taylor's mentor, but also as a much-needed force of benign anarchy on the campus. Knight delivers quip after quip without ever dipping into smarm, a credit to the script, Coolidge, and, of course, Kilmer himself. This is as good a performance as Kilmer gave in a film, and "Real Genius" also features peak turns by '80s Jerk icon William Atherton and Michelle Meyrink.
Okay, so Meyrink gave up acting early and only made eight films total, but she's really good in this one! To watch "Real Genius" is to realize that Kilmer easily could have been a comedy star in the '80s and '90s. He could have honestly matched Eddie Murphy as an action-comedy stalwart. Instead, Kilmer decided to go in another direction.
His next movie after "Real Genius" would be "Top Gun." It would also be his first commercially successful film, which may have colored his decision on his career path. We got plenty of fine Kilmer performances in end, but reflecting upon "Top Secret!" and "Real Genius" all these years later, we also assuredly missed out.
Chris Morgan is a Detroit-based culture writer who has somehow managed to justify getting his BA in Film Studies. He has written about sports and entertainment across various internet platforms for years and is also the author of three books about '90s television..
