Radio Flyer (1992)

Good movie, mostly kind of sad but also kind of happy in a symmetric kind of way. And Frodo has always been a good actor.What annoys me is the way the movie, and Hollywood in general, put the blame of child abuse on men and alcohol. But the cause is rampant divorce and feminist extremists' denial of biology.Biological parents care more for their own children, and feminists expect their new partner to ignore that primal instinct. Children living with one parent and unmarried partner are more than 8 times more likely to be abused.Divorce is about individual freedom, and I get that, but people ignore that it leads to unhappy lives, it often bankrupts the biological father, and the children lose a parent, and in bad cases, children are beaten and even die because of divorce.Hollywood should paint a more realistic picture, but I understand that they are in the business of selling emotions, not education.

Even people who dislike the film, usually because they find the ending confused, should appreciate the strong acting of Elijah Wood & Joseph Mazello who played the two young leads in this movie.Spoiler WARNING: At a literal level, the ending makes no sense. People who think the ending makes some sense at other levels are divided between those who 1) think the younger brother was killed by the step-father either the one time Mike (the older boy) was away dealing with the neighborhood gang, or flew off the wishing spot in his wagon to escape the situation through death & those 2) who think the younger brother is imaginary & his flying off in the wagon transformed into a flying machine signals his overcoming the abusive situation.I favor 2). It makes a lot of sense in terms of the way many children deal with abusive situations. It is not uncommon for an abused child to split his or her psyche & project the abused self into something else; a stuffed animal, even an imaginary friend. This way, it makes a lot more sense that it is always the younger boy who is abused & never Mike. In reality, it is unlikely for one of two brothers to get all the abuse, although that does happen. Also, it is Bobby, the younger brother who is also the encouraging one, the one who insists that they can overcome the situation. Also, the death of a real-life sibling through abuse would have been too shattering for an adult with this in his history to transform into as upbeat a fantasy ending as this.

I am surprised that so many viewers didn't find all the symbolism in the movie.....it's what made the movie an incredible work of art! The story deals with some of the saddest content a movie could hold, yet it is one of the best movies I've ever seen because of the need for your own imagination and the brilliance in the storyline.If you will pay close attention, the message is there. The younger brother is killed by the stepfather. The older brother made up the story about the wagon flying as a way to deal with the pain of his brother's death. There are those that would argue why would he lie to his own children with the story. To me the answer is because he doesn't want to share such ugliness with his own children, or that he has blocked it out and replaced his memory of the horrific event with the thought of his brother flying away to safety. I've read some of the reviews that believe he was an only child and that he created the younger brother as an escape to deal with the abuse he suffered. Although this is an interesting idea - I love the imagination used to come up with that. I don't think he would have lied to his own children about having a little brother. But, I do find it plausible that he would have lied about his little brother's death. However, I like that idea of an ending much better than the notion that the movie had no symbolism at all.There are many different takes you can have on the movie, but if you take the movie at face value.....two brothers creating a wagon that flies to escape an abusive stepfather - you've missed the brilliance. The fact that I was able to see the subtle messages in the script were what made the movie so incredible to me. It requires your own thought process and your own imagination to make it work......dig deep when you watch it. You'll be amazed at the genius contained in the film. The only other movie I've seen as close to this in symbolism and subtle messages is Pleasantville.....but that's a comment for another movie!

This movie was horrible. If it had never been made the world would be a better place. Come on, a flying wagon? What were they thinking? This was a sub-par movie with a horrible hook, and I would like a written apology from the studio that produced this, along with some cookies to help repay me for the time I wasted on this crap fest that I can never get back. If you payed to see this movie, I am truly sorry because I watched it on TV on a Sunday afternoon when I had nothing better to do and it pretty much ruined my whole week. A flying freaking WAGON?!?! And that's supposed to make up for having a horrible mother who cares more about her own screwed up needs than her children? No wonder they don't have enough sense to tell someone he is beating them, their mother teaches them nothing but that what she wants comes before everything else. Absolutely horrible.