Explorers (1985)
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Explorers Movie Review
Explorers is a 1985 science fantasy film directed by Joe Dante and starring Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. It is one of the more underrated family flicks of the decade.
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“Elephantitis is when something gets bloated and ugly like your ass“
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Ben dreams up a circuit board which he builds with the help of his friend Wolfgang. This invention allows the two to travel through Earth’s atmosphere into outer space and encounter alien life. Joe Dante was a great director of children’s movies, and although this one gets forgotten way too often, it still deserves to be talked about in a more positive light for all of the things that they did right here.
I will talk about that third act later, but let’s first focus on the positives. This is a wonderful family flick fueled by a big heart and excellent characterization. Each of the three kids is different in their personalities, which was important as it led to such a fun dynamic between them. Jason Presson did not get a bigger career out of this movie, but he also needs to be praised for such a natural, strong child performance that he gave here.
The film is maybe the most famous for introducing the world to both River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke. Hawke was so great from the very beginning and an instant movie star in both his looks and his charisma. As for Phoenix, it was somewhat surprising to see him in a geeky, significantly less cool role than he would get in subsequent movies, but he was still quite believable and also amusing as this kid scientist basically.
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Explorers was truly enchanting in its first two acts. This is where the movie reached genuine movie magic and was to me more magical than the overrated ‘E.T.’ The building of the spaceship produced many wonderful moments and the film was both highly cinematic and downright endearing in the scenes where they flew the ship around the town.
Explorers is also very meta, which was quite rare for this era. They referenced so many movies and shows, both old and then current. However, that referencing got out of hand in the third act with the aliens. Yes, this is the biggest problem of the movie. Apparently, Dante and the company not only rushed the movie, but they’d never known the ending to to the story, so they made it up while filming it. The result is clearly inferior to the rest of the picture.
The aliens look amazing actually. I love these practical creature effects and the Muppet look worked for me. But everything else did not work. The voices were totally wrong for them and the personalities were way too goofy. The humor here was a failure and it was also ridiculously out of touch with what kids want by giving them all those fifties references that would fly over their heads. I loved their ship and the visuals were gorgeous, but the aliens themselves were such a disappointment.
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With that being said, this is still a good film, just not a classic that it could have been with a different, better ending. The VFX were truly astonishing for the time with that ball effect being particularly mesmerizing. The score by Jerry Goldsmith was absolutely beautiful while the pacing was also great. The first two acts are so phenomenal that even that messy conclusion could not diminish their impact for me.
