It is good, cheery stuff and stimulating in a healthy Boy's Own tradition.

Flight of the Navigator won't earn a place among Disney's classics. but it's a perfectly entertaining sci-fi movie that does a creditable job with the stale human-meets-alien theme.

When the film shifts into the action mode in its second half -- the flying saucer returns to aid in David`s rescue -- it becomes quite bright and lively.

The junior Rip Van Winkle part of the film is amusing and genuinely touching. The rest is less so, though it interestingly combines two recurrent themes in recent American cinema.