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Blistering performances.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Those darned teenagers; those juvenile delinquents. So we have a town beset by some adolescents who have gotten their hands on a secret formula and have grown to be 30 feet tall. They were rebellious before but now. Those parents who used to tell them what to do are going to get theirs. There are several old Mouseketeers here but this is not a Disney movie. Tommy Kirk is the handsome one. Ronny Howard is the Genius who is responsible for all this. And, of course, there are a host of mutant animals running around. The adults are so clueless, but then why shouldn't they be. This is the living out of the kid fantasy, but these guys are so stupid, all they want to do is party. Hey, nobody is accusing anyone of Shakespeare. It's worth watching for laughs.

I feel I should first mention that I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this movie. And after watching it, I am glad I saw that version instead of the original version. The movie is poorly made in every area that you can think of. Though the original version was only eighty minutes long, I could still see even in the MST3K version that the story was ridiculously padded with dance/song numbers and other material that does not advance the plot at all. The special effects are awful as well, so bad that they are not unintentionally amusing at all, instead just embarrassing to witness. Maybe because of the cheap special effects, the story was clearly written to be tongue in cheek, but isn't the least bit amusing. But the worst thing about the movie is that there is not one likable character. The bad teens are bad, and the good teens are stupid and annoying. As you can see, the original version is a movie that is tough to sit through. The constant ribbing of the movie by the MST3K version does make the movie watchable - barely.

Delinquent teens ingest a substance and grow to 30 feet tall, then proceed to take over a small town.So, this film has a pretty decent cast with boy genius Ron Howard, giant Beau Bridges, and go-go dancing Toni Basil. And it is directed by one of the B-movie greats, Bert Gordon. But it is just bad.Sure, Quentin Tarantino used the theme song in his "Death Proof" and the kids like to drink Blatz beer, but it seems like more of this movie is spent on watching kids dance or bands playing music. The actual plot takes up little time.The only good thing I can say about this movie (besides the good points mentioned) is a claim a kid makes about how the rebels are no better than the old authorities if they just replace them and keep the same power structures. That could have been explored more, but I guess I should not expect too much from a psychedelic 1960s disposable film.

This completely ridiculous tongue-in-cheek adolescent sci-fi comedy romp represents 60's kitsch at its most delightfully dumb and inoffensive. The plot alone is pure silliness: A precocious little squirt scientific genius named -- what else? -- Genius (none other than future "Happy Days" TV show star and mainstream feature director Ron Howard!) creates a special formula called goo that causes both people and animals to growth substantially in size. Of course, a no-count band of rowdy rebellious teenagers led by the suave Fred (an embarrassingly bad turn by Beau Bridges) eat the goo and become evil tyrant towering behemoths who take over the town. It's up to nice guy Mike (former Disney movie star Tommy Kirk) to stop them. Boy, does this hilariously ludicrous honey deliver the campy goods with a gut-busting vengeance: we've got fumbling (mis)direction by the ever-inept Bert I. Gordon, uproariously poor and unconvincing (not so) special effects (the huge wooden legs are especially laughable), extremely variable acting, a pair of giant dancing ducks, hopelessly dated "hip" slang (favorite line: "Dig that nitty gritty"), a cheerfully silly tone, blithely lewd and idiotic humor (one dude hangs off the breasts of a busty lady giant!), an excellent rock soundtrack, and more insanely groovy dancing than you can shake a tail feather at (the lengthy sequence with the over-sized teens dancing up a storm is positively sidesplitting!). Better still, Jack Nizsche supplies a terrific catchy score (the rumbling instrumental tune "The Last Race" is simply fantastic), both Freddy Cannon and the Beau Brummels make special guest musical appearances, and such hot babes as Joy Harmon (the buxom blonde car wash girl in "Cool Hand Luke"), Tisha Sterling, and Toni Basil provide a plethora of delicious distaff eye candy. Stanley Kubrick film regular Joe Turkel plays the no-nonsense sheriff and Rance Howard even briefly pops up as a deputy. All in all, this infectiously inane stupidity sizes up as a total goofy hoot.