Brian McAleer
Three friends, who love anything to do with aliens, UFO's and space, watch late night movies like "The War of the Worlds" and fall asleep with the TV on. In their dreams, they imagine themselves flying through a cloudy night sky. In one such dream, an idea comes to one of the boys, Ben (Ethan Hawke), which he cannot understand or decipher in his dream. As he awakes with a fright, knowing that he's dreamt something significant, he races over to his table, grabbing paper and pen, and draws down the image he dreamt, trying desperately to capture what he just envisioned in his sleep. After drawing an unusual image as best as he can, Ben grabs his walkie talkie and calls his mate Wolfgang (River Phoenix) who lives on the other side of the neighbourhood. Waking him up in the middle of the night to ramble off his idea, Ben tells Wolfgang he drew as much as he could remember and asks him to take a look at it the next day at school. The next day at school, before Ben can talk about his visionary dream to Wolfgang, he is the target of bullies, and they are punks of the most delinquent sort. Outcast kid Darren (Jason Presson) steps in to break up the scrimmage, and leads the bullies away on a chase. Ben catches up to Darren to thank him, and the two get to know one another, walking through the woods, pushing their bikes along and sharing stories about their dysfunctional parents. As Wolfgang didn't show up to school that day, Ben invites Darren over to meet the junior professor.The particular scientific discovery which kicks things into action in the film, is directing a force of energy to any location, anywhere, simply by entering its co-ordinates. As Ben and Darren arrive at Wolfgang's house after school, he shows them this amazing breakthrough, and here the other two boys decide they want to be a part of it. Ben claims the idea was his, given he described the image from his dream to Wolfgang who used it to make the discovery (and miss a day of school in the process), whereas Darren will go on to show he is the hands-on kid who can build things, like a mechanic or engineer. Ben is the dreamer, Wolfgang is the thinker and Darren is the doer. Together, this trio of explorers will each play an important part in the creation and take- off of a very special project. Wolfgang's latest experiment has more power than he could have calculated himself, so gradually the three boys try to control the energy source, through a series of experiments. Accidentally, they discover the energy source acts like a sphere which can also be used as a travelling device. Wolfgang gets enveloped into it and whizzed around at high speed. Darren suggests devising a way to sit inside it, so the boys can travel around, anywhere, anytime and do, anything. Off they go to the local junkyard, sneaking in to gather up some scrap parts and begin to build…. something. What they will build they don't know yet, but it will take them places they never imagined they could go. Maybe even into Outer Space…Our three Explorers succeed in their crazy idea and manage to build a space ship, scraped together with a large, red chair from an old amusement ride, a garbage can and a NASA sticker as the icing on the cake. Installing their computer inside, the boys do the unthinkable – use their self-made craft to harness the power of the energy sphere, and take off! Up and away they go, rising above their local neighbourhood, soaring above hundreds of houses and spooked dogs that bark up at them from below. They fly across their town at high speed, and quickly learn how to control its accelerated path of flight. But the further and longer they fly around, the more their adventure gets out of control. Back on the ground, and with a taste for adventure in the air, the boys think what the next best step should be. Ben, ever the dreamer, wants to go back up. Wolfgang, the cautious and calculating one, wants to run more tests, whereas Darren just waits for the other two to decide what's next. The three male actors do a great job with their parts, and have a very natural chemistry on screen. After the boys have some fun flying around in their homemade UFO, the film takes an interesting turn, as they lift up off the ground again, but a little too high this time and discover themselves in space. Out of their depth and out of this world, they continue to Explore, each of them wearing their usual hat; Dreamer, Thinker and Doer. A winning combination when it comes to being the first human beings to meet some unusual and unorthodox aliens.Explorers stands as one of my personal favourite childhood movies from the 1980's. The idea was a classic example of letting kids be kids and do the things they dreamt about. Ben, Darren and Wolfgang were heroes, because they took their idea, and made it happen. No adults could stop them, and with boundless persistence and plenty of dedication, it worked. Along with a dose of pure imagination and endless energy, the Explorers proved the sky wasn't just the limit – it was the destination.
utgard14
Three kids (River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke, Jason Presson) build a spaceship from designs they get in their dreams. Then they launch it into space and meet some bizarre aliens. Like many other reviewers, I have mixed feelings about Explorers. Everything up to when the kids meet the aliens is excellent. Well-written, imaginative, exciting, beautiful film that could stand on par with anything Spielberg has done. Then the aliens. What's there to say? I've read a lot of breakdowns of it where people try to explain what Dante was "trying to say" and such. But, at the end of the day, these feel like excuses for why a great movie turns into a big joke. Still, the ending is nice and ultimately it's an uplifting, fun movie. Even the alien parts are watchable. Though admittedly more watchable for me after repeated viewings than the first. Give it a shot and judge for yourself.
Spikeopath
Explorers is directed by Joe Dante and written by Eric Luke. It stars Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson and Amanda Peterson. Music is by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by John Hora.It's the family friendly sci-fi that Joe Dante did after he made Gremlins, and it's a film of much fun and childish splendour that is only done down by getting away from itself in the last quarter.Plot basically sees three young lads (Hawke, Phoenix and Presson) with different talents and ideals who come together to fashion a spacecraft as they deal with the perils of school (bullies, puppy love, scholastic pressure). Taking off, the boys eventually go into space and encounter an alien race who have an interesting view on the human race...Dante had studio interference to contend with and he eventually re-edited the film for home format release. The film does feel compromised and rushed towards the end, but the story holds up real well and the young actors (Dante's excellent direction of youngsters is often forgotten) engage and entertain for all the right reasons. It's a bit derivative and it does at times feel like Dante is just making a movie so he can bathe in homage nostalgia, but there is intelligence in the sci-fi factors before it gets confused as to its messages and the aliens we finally meet annoy and disappoint.Weird and wondrous, fun and fragile, Explorers is a mixed bag for sure. 7/10
