Memory is a tricky thing.
“Cloak and Dagger” was one of those movies that seemed really cool when relying on childhood memories. What kid doesn’t like spy movies that include explosions, video games, gunplay and elderly terrorists? The problem with this movie is that it completely fails to live up to the expectations that a misty memory sets up.
This column has been pretty lucky so far. “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?”: As good as we expected. “Transformers: The Movie”: Even better. OK, “The Ice Pirates” was a bit of a stumble, but it was light-years better than this movie.
In a nutshell, the plot revolves around young David Osbourne (Henry Thomas), son of an Air Force sergeant (Dabney Coleman), an avid war-themed role-playing-game enthusiast who becomes mixed up in a plot to sell top-secret bomber plans to terrorists. But in one of the earliest examples of cross-promotional tie-ins, the plans are hidden inside of a “Cloak and Dagger” Atari cartridge, which David must rescue after witnessing the violent death of an FBI agent.
Speaking of violence, this movie is awfully dark and violent for a supposed kid’s movie. “Cloak and Dagger” is stuck in limbo: Too disturbing for small children but too implausible and stupid for older viewers. Over the course of the film, David sees five people meet bloody deaths, and it doesn’t seem to affect him.
Where the movie hooks you or loses you is with Coleman’s dual role as both David’s father and his imaginary friend, super spy Jack Flack. The dichotomy is interesting — as Dad, Coleman is concerned and conservative, and as Flack, Coleman tells David to constantly shoot bad guys, shoplift and disregard authority.
The Jack Flack character seems a little like Drop Dead Fred, from the movie of the same title. He is an imaginary friend, but he seems to have some control over reality. This
becomes apparent at the climax of the film’s moral conflict when Flack seemingly diverts the bad guys’ fire while David shoots him.
Mason: So is he really there, or just imaginary?
Josh: Well, you see David walking down the street talking to Flack, and then in the next shot he’s talking to nobody. So, I think he’s imaginary, but that’s where the filmmakers screwed up.
The way that the director has Flack come in and out of reality with camera cuts and pans is a good cinematic device, but generally confusing. Flack admits that he isn’t real, but he opens doors and sees things that David can’t see. These are very real. I guess we’ll just have to rope off this plot hole and direct traffic around it.
The thing that is appealing about the film is that the villains get their just desserts. No hokey ending where the bad guys are carted off to jail; in this movie they all meet timely ends. Whether it’s through a windshield, on the receiving end of a bullet (or several) or in the fiery inferno of an exploding plane, kids will get a certain visceral satisfaction from seeing the people they hate getting what they deserve: bloody death.
It is funny that Thomas just finished “E.T.” before this film because the elderly woman who plays one of the two criminal masterminds has only three fingers. When she takes off her glove to reveal her secret, it looks a lot like E.T. is trying to heal Elliott.
Mason: I swear that her finger started glowing for a second.
Josh: Elliiiiiioooootttttt. Elliiiiiioooootttttt.
There are a few redeeming moments to this movie. We found a whole two quotes worth a laugh:
“Heros don’t just shoot people. They put dinner on the table; they fix bicycles …” — Dad
“You’ve got a helluva nerve stealing inside the Alamo” — guard
But despite a few laughs, the hour and a half that is required to watch this movie is more valuable than the money spent making it.