Explorers (1985) review

(9/10)

I have watched this multiple times as a child, but not even age has taken away the magic I've felt from this film in the past. It's so out-of-this world that I just love it, despite all its flaws.

PLOT:Young Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke) is a little strange of a kid because he always watches sci-fi movies and is into all stuff outer space. His best friend, Wolfgang (River Pheonix), is a smart, geeky scientist working on an experiment. One day, after bad boy, Darren (Jason Presson), saves Ben from a bully, the two stop by Wolfgang's house and discoveres the experiment of a lifetime. Wolfgang has come up with a computer that will make a spherical force field of any size that can go anywhere at any speed with no travel inertia. They come up with an idea to use this to their advantage; they want to fly high and maybe even to outer space! They gather the supplies and put a craft worthy of flight in the sphere together, hoping to leave Earth, but something always goes screwy. Each has strange dreams at night, and the coordinates mess up when they travel, so they may thing that some extra-terrestrial force is trying to make contact with them. It's a really good plot executed greatly.



ACTING:The acting in here is pretty great, even for the child actors! Ethan Hawke, River Pheonix, and Jason Presson all three play great parts as Ben, Wolfgang, and Darren. Each enhances his personality in the movie very well. The better performances were from Robert Picardo and Leslie Rickert as Wak and Neek., whom are very important characters in the movie. Their voices fit the part very well. The other shiners would be Amanda Peterson as Lori Swenson and Dick Miller as Charles Drake.

SCORE:The score is very inspirational and far-out. It enhances the relaxed sci-fi feel of the movie. I really like it.

EFFECTS:The effects in here are brilliant for their time. The realistic effects used to make the aliens and the robots are interesting and very fun to look at. They look more real than most CG stuff these days. The computer effects for the dreams, force field, and flight are pretty cool too. For CG in the 1980s, this actually looked pretty cool and nostalgic.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie has always brought wonder and comfort to me ever since I was a younger child. The idea is just a good idea and so out-of-this-world that I felt I wanted to be there. The random humor and scattered wonder just all go together and make this a fun movie. They say its a lot carried on to be nothing, but I see some worth in all of it for the feeling of wonder I get from it. This is just one of those movies that is fairly interesting somehow to everyone because of the wonder and effect. However, this does have a couple flaws; the end product is very cheesy and there are some small plot holes that just make little sense to me. They can't completely mask how I feel for this movie, but they exist to me regardless.

OVERALL,an awesome sci-fi with a great plot, pretty great acting, inspirational and far-out score, realistic and cool effects for their time, a feeling of wonder and comfort from being so out there, and a great span of interest, but the ending is very cheesy and there are a couple of small plot holes.