SnoopyStyle The year is 41. In a dystopian future, water is scarce and the Protectorate controls everything. Legend says that the Bohdai will come from space to liberate the people and the water. Orphanage 43 borders on the wasteland. A game that is both lacrosse and roller derby is played. Jason (Jason Patric) leads his rag tag group Solarbabies that includes Terra (Jami Gertz), Tug ( Peter DeLuise), Rabbit (Claude Brooks), Metron (James LeGros) and deaf boy Daniel (Lukas Haas). Strictor Grock (Richard Jordan) runs the lead group Scorpions and gives them all the privileges. The Warden (Charles Durning) is more practical and would rather not run the camp as a prison. Shandray (Sarah Douglas) is one of the teacher. Daniel finds a glowing orb in a cave which fixes his hearing. The orb communicates with Daniel calling itself Bohdai.It's a young adult dystopian movie before it became a trend. The problem is the overwhelming sense of cheesiness. It starts with the stupid name Solarbabies. I don't know where it comes from but it needed to stay there. The game is reminiscent of all the silly movie 'Roller' games that was so popular in 70s B-movie. This movie is full of bad smelly cheese. It's only salvation is the cast of good young actors and the bare bones of a better story underneath. It could probably be remade after a lot of rewrites.

crownofsprats OK, firstly, you are watching (or about to watch) a movie called 'Solarbabies'. If that doesn't deter you, then you are probably at least semi-aware of what you are getting yourself into, and why. Meaning: if you are not a connoisseur of badly-aged cheese, you probably shouldn't be here.As far as C-grade postapocalyptic movies from the 80s are concerned, this is one of the weirder ones, but very entertaining if you are into that sort of thing. The movie is for a younger audience, so no T&A or gratuitous blood & gore. However, its most audacious gamble is the way it channels postapocalyptic fascism, oppression, torture, truncheon violence (of note is the amazing Orwell-style "indoctrination" scene), and sexual desire through the prism of roller-skating, packaging it to the unsuspecting bunch of tweens & teens whose parents didn't allow them to see Mad Max when it came out. So yeah! This group of orphans calling themselves Solarbabies basically just wants to play a futuristic combination of roller hockey and lacrosse all the time, but they are jailed up in a postapocalyptic concentration camp/police academy for 'orphans', with a heavy roller- blading component. (They can sneak out, though - the rules are pretty lax, since they are in the middle of a desert wasteland and water is scarce.) If you are sufficiently cruel, you get to join the ranks of the E-Police. If you aren't E-Police material, you are probably going to end up a hard laborer (presumably on rollerblades as well), or worse yet, be sent in for 'surgical alteration'. Anyway, one of the Solarbabies finds a magical orb in a cave and befriends it. Of course, the E-Police hate the orb and wish to destroy it. There's also a guy that befriends crows and stuff...roll film!AWESOME: the locations (filmed in Spain, the sets give the scenery the expanse it needs to work); the level of heavy-handed oppression, courtesy of the head E-Police chief and his weird update on the Nazi commandant uniform; great chase-and-destroy scenes with armored vehicles and two shantytowns; the sexual innuendos; lasers; finally, the torture scene!! Remember, you are watching a children's movie about a magical glowing orb that befriends some orphans.LAME: the glowing orb; the feelings of good cheer the children experience when hanging out and playing roller hockey with the orb (by that, I mean they use the sentient orb as a puck); the eco-hippy stuff; the lame attempt to make this into a metaphor for growing up confused and trying to find your place in a vast and soulless world; the lack of more oppression and truncheons in the film.LACKING: T&A, David Carradine

DaPhOoL I remember when I first saw this film, I must have been about six years old (1990 or so), I thought this film was amazing at that time. I've since watched it several times as an adult and all I can do is laugh at every serious scene in this movie. This film is about a future in which roller skates apparently make a huge come back. All of the worlds water (or most of it anyway) is being stored in a building about the size of Yankee stadium. There is no rain because apparently there is also no such thing as evaporation (although plenty of the cast are sweating throughout the film). All animals except a few birds and a couple of attack dogs are dead (or hiding really well ^_^). All plant life is dead and gone which means two things, No salad, and oxygen must be supplied by planet Druidia! My favorite scene in the whole movie is when "Rabbit" dare I say the only back person left alive on the planet, does a very non-offensive Harlem Globe Trotters routine with the "Sphere of Longiness". You will enjoy this movie if you want some chuckles, please watch it and, "Enjoy a decent life grid!" (That line cracks me up!)

mhwalker37 Yeah, when I teenager this movie was the ilk that I remember of the 1980's. Watching it now over 20 years later it is so corny with the 80's break dancing music and pointless plot. What caught my eye of course was a 20 year old Jami Gertz and the white robe scene where you could see her whole naked body. Nothing left to the imagination. I wonder sometimes if she really knew what the producers were trying to do with the bright light behind her so you could see through the white robe. Either way that was the first I ever heard of her as an actress and I have enjoyed her spunky wit ever since in her movies. Really loved her in "The lost boys" movie as well. Now at 42, she is still pretty and funny and I have caught her on the sitcom called Still Standing on Lifetime (yeah I'm a guy and I watch Lifetime with my wife) and Jami is still funny with her sweet but sarcastic attitude.