Everyone knows that teenagers are smarter than adults, and if given a chance the kids could save the world--if they don't blow it to bits first. The Manhattan Project tells of how 16-year-old
Christopher Collet tries to alert his community to the dangers of nuclear energy.
John Lithgow, a doctor in a pharmaceutical research plant wherein covert plutonium experiments are taking place, is the boy friend of Cowlet's mom
Jill Eikenberry. While Lithgow is romantically occupied, Cowlet and his girl
Cynthia Nixon steal the plutonium and construct their own atomic bomb. They do this, of course, as a warning to foolhardy grownups--none more foolhardy than the folks who put up good money to make this film.
Manhattan Project was directed by longtime
Woody Allen collaborator
Marshall Brickman, whose expert sense of comic timing obscures the thickheaded "message" of this picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide