80's fun movie
Added 11/19/2009
A good movie, cute, fun, corney, very 80's. I think the target audience for this movie would range from 5 to 13 years old but will still be fun for parents. The scene with beer may put off some parents, but it's brief, and kids will understand that it was wrong for the boys in the movie to have the beer if it's explained to them. When I was a kid, me and my friends acted out the creation of the spaceship for weeks and this "social huckup" was never mentioned. I especially remembered the fantastic scene where the alien was singing a recording of "All Around the World" by Little Richard. A fun side note, the actor that played the male alien "Wak" is the same actor that played the "Star Killer" character in the drive-in movie scene.
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A Wonderful Film from the 1980s
Added 11/9/2009
This film is really a good one, and it is well worth any viewer's time. The acting by the young Ethan Hawke was just awesome, and the range of emotions and skill he had at such a young age was truly impressive. It is such a shame that this film did not do well when it was originally released as the storyline of the film is pretty good, the acting by all the main characters was quite impressive, and the special effects used in this film were really advanced considering this film was made around 1984/1985. Ethan Hawke truly did a fine job in his role as his performance really carried the film not that the other actors were bad in anyway. My only quibble with this film was the aliens as even the Hawke character was frustrated about the sillyness of the aliens he and his friends encountered. The tone of the film was quasi-serious with the boys experimenting with their newfound knowledge with everything leading up to the big meeting with the aliens. I think the Hawke character's exasperation with the aliens probably best conveyed the feelings of the viewer as I was hoping for more from the aliens rather than their being basically the same age as the boys and probably not as mature as them. The aliens were kind of a let down for me personally, but they were kind of funny in a way in that I am sure in the world of those boys President Carter would have probably been horrified to learn that instead of aliens learning about Earth from the recorded messages of the Voyager probes that instead they were using television of the day to ascertain how humans lived!
Despite the aliens everything else in the film was great especially with the interactions between the characters. The intellect of the River Phoenix character Wolfgang worked very well with the idealism of the Hawke character Ben while the Jason Presson character Darron's pessimism kept everyone grounded and real.
Even though this film is from the 1980s it is timeless and can even be enjoyed nowadays. Granted, somethings like an Apple IIE computer might seem like a blast from the past, but the feelings of the boys and their adventure is something that can happen to anyone. I know that some folks on here had issues with the ending of the film, but considering that this was a film made from the 1980s along the lines of "Flight of the Navigator" and "E.T." I think the ending made sense to convey a sense of hope.
Basically, this is a feel good film which one can watch with the whole family, and this is a film that anyone from a young child to a grown adult can enjoy as it does appeal to everyone.
If this film is ever remade, then I hope that the aliens can be made to be less ridiculous as they came across, and it would be really nice if there could be more of a background to the helicopter pilot who had caught the boys midair and who apparently had the same kind of dreams when he was a boy of their age. It would have been interesting for that character to have been either a protagonist or antagonist to the boys as they made their journey to the alien spaceship as it seemed like his role was really truncated in this film most likely due to time contraints.
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exploreres
Added 8/31/2009
The movie was ok, much better when I was 8 rather than being older.
Still good but special FX's aren't that special.
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My kids do not have the same taste as me. When I was younger, I loved this movie. I cannot get my kids to watch the whole thing without getting bored.
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Explorers
Added 5/31/2009
This is a good movie. All the young actors we excellent. The movie was full of adventure all the way through
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