Camp Nowhere (1994)

One of my favourite childhood films, I am glad to say that it has held up very well. The film concerns a group of kids who, unbeknownst to their parents, create their own summer camp with the help of an eccentric former drama teacher. The premise could easily be the subject of a horror film but it is instead played for laughs! The script by Andrew Kurtzman and Elliot Wald is quite well written and, while it is not free of clichés, manages to avoid the most obvious stereotypes that plagued live action kids' films of the era and does not talk down to kids. However, I have to admit that I found it more fun than laugh out loud funny. In any event, the film is well directed by Jonathan Prince, who later created one of my favourite drama series, the criminally underrated "American Dreams".Without a shadow of a doubt, the perfectly cast Christopher Lloyd steals the show as the aforementioned drama teacher, an ex-hippie named Dennis Van Welker who once put on a musical production of "The Silence of the Lambs". As the kids have to fool their very gullible parents into thinking that they are going to different camps (computer, weight loss, military and theatrical), Lloyd's considerable skills as a comic actor are called upon when he has to imitate the various camp leaders. Lloyd gets most of the best lines and funniest scenes in the film. It is not just played for laughs, however, as he has a very sweet romance with Dr. Celeste Dunbar, played very well by Wendy Makkena, which reminded me somewhat of Doc's relationship with Clara in "Back to the Future Part III".Jonathan Jackson is very good as Morris "Mud" Himmel, the boy who came up with the idea of Camp Nowhere in the first place. He has a great screen presence and nice chemistry with Lloyd. Mud is supposed to be a geek but the script avoided making him an incredibly stereotypical one and this is a good decision as he is a more believable and relatable character as a result. Melody Kay is likewise good as his "girlfriend" Gaby Nowicki. However, she is supposed to be the relatable overweight girl but she is as thin as a rake. It's a shame that her only other film was the truly abysmal "The Neverending Story III" later the same year as she could have had a good career. Andrew Keegan and Marnette Patterson round out the younger cast as the troublemaker Zack Dell and the Valley Girl Trish Prescott, both of whom are revealed to be little more complicated than they first appear as the film progresses. Patterson is the weakest of the main four kid cast members but she is still quite good. She, Jackson and Keegan seemed to be in every live action kids' shows and film in the 1990s, incidentally. The younger cast also included future "Smallville" star Allison Mack and, making her film debut in a non-speaking role, Jessica Alba.The film also benefits from a strong adult supporting cast. In one of his final acting roles, the 87-year-old Burgess Meredith has a wonderful cameo as the owner of the campsite who recalls with great pleasure the sex and debauchery that the hippies got up to in the late 1960s. He has less than a minute's screen time but he is still the best thing about the film other than Lloyd, which says a lot. M. Emmet Walsh is suitably and reliably obnoxious as the debt collector T.R. Polk who is pursuing Dennis for missing 43 payments on his hideous yellow AMC Gremlin while Lloyd's "Back to the Future" co-star Thomas F. Wilson is very well cast as the dimwitted police officer Lt. Eliot Hendricks. I think that the two of them have almost as much interaction in this film as in all three "Back to the Future" films, actually. Kate Mulgrew is very funny in her small role as Trish's stage mother, as is Ray Baker as her clueless father. It also features nice small appearances from Peter Scolari, Peter Onorati, Jonathan Frakes and his wife (and Jackson's "General Hospital" co-star) Genie Francis.Overall, there is a very fun film which has some very clever moments which I did not appreciate when I was younger such as the extremely funny "Tennessee for Tots" production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and aforementioned "The Silence of the Lambs" joke. Another little moment that I loved was one of the kids confusing "Star Trek IV" with "Rocky IV"! A sequel would have been nice but, alas, it was not to be.

OK, there have been so many movies about cool kids trashing the adults' rules, that another one would hardly register. However, "Camp Nowhere", about some teenagers creating a summer camp sans adult supervision, has some pretty cool stuff in store. No doubt, all kids have at some point wanted to do something like this. And if there's only going to be one adult at the camp, I'd say that Christopher Lloyd probably would be the right person to have.So, don't expect to see this and have some sort of religious experience (although there's no guarantee that you won't have one); just expect to have fun (that's pretty much guaranteed). Also starring Jonathan Jackson, M. Emmet Walsh, and even a very young Jessica Alba.And that end scene was sure a shocker!

A wonderful funny movie. It is a good movie with good values. I have loved it since I saw it when it first came out. I have the DVD now and it still continues to make me smile and laugh as I watch it. I wanted to be at the camp with the kids. I watch it now and wish I could just get away and have a camp like that. The kids made there own camp and had, Christopher Lloyd, be there camp representative for multiple camps. Andrew Keagan is in it and when I was younger I thought he was the hottest guy alive so I loved to watch and re-watch the movie. The kids all get in trouble in the end for deceiving their parents and Lloyd gets his debt which has the cops looking for him paid off in a sweet way.

Involuntarily I have watched this one on TV. It was good, had an okay storyline (even though pretty unrealistic... but that applies to all movies of this kind), and most importantly it didn't have exaggerated cheap and lame humour a lá Police Academy or similar. This one might even entertain grown ups. I'd say this movie was one of the better kid's flicks (not saying that Police Academy is one, but honestly, it's a big piece of crap). However I can't judge the original version since I've seen the German dubbed version which was pretty ok. I think it's underrated here at IMdB. I give it a kids/comedy rating of 7/10 (please note that this is not a generic movie rating. imo you cannot judge all kinds of movies the same).