Explorers

The adventure begins in your own back yard

EXPLORERS (U)

D: Joe Dante

Paramount (Edward S. Feldman & David Bombyk)

USA 🇺🇸 1985

109 mins

Science Fiction

W: Eric Luke

DP: John Hora

Ed: Tina Hirsch

Mus: Jerry Goldsmith

Ethan Hawke (Ben Crandall), River Phoenix (Wolfgang Müller), Jason Presson (Darren Woods), Amanda Peterson (Lori Swenson), Dick Miller (Charlie Drake)

Three schoolkids, inspired by strange dreams, build a spacecraft out of scrap they find at a junkyard and travel into outer space where they encounter a strange alien species whose knowledge developed by intercepting American TV shows.

As a children's movie, this isn't too bad and has it's heart in the right place, but it works best when the action is grounded. The best scenes are those of the boys raiding the junkyard for materials they can use and developing the scientific know-how to achieve flight. Once they journey into space, it becomes ridiculous (unless you're 10 years old or younger) and the aliens are incredibly annoying (unless you're a fan of Pee-Wee Herman). It hasn't really dated very well in fairness and will be appreciated most by those who watched it during the 1980's.

6/10