Explorers (1985)

Simply Perfect

Good concept, poorly executed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Im a massive fan of 80s movies, i love everything 80s. But this movie has aged and is almost un watchable once the boys arrive on the ship. Everything up until then is quite good, the plot is a typical 80s adventure, but once they actually meet the aliens it ruins the film for me and is just far too silly and unrealistic to watch in this day and age. Its a shame because it could have been up there with the monster squad, the goonies and stand by me, but unfortunately it just went a little it too far with the aliens and silly humour and for me thats why it makes it un appealing in this time

Couldn't remember this film but was running out of good family films the kids hadn't seen and remembered all the other kids films from the eighties being fab so thought I'd give this a try. I was enjoying it and so were the kids until the aliens were revealed. It started so well! The acting was good, the different characters were very relatable, even the effects were fairly believable and it was good to see how the boys progressed with their knowledge until they created their spaceship. Even when they first got to the alien spaceship it was OK, like a big funhouse. But then we met the aliens. They were awful, really cringeingly awful. One of them didn't even really talk to the boys but just gabbled on like a cheesy American advert all the time. They were godawful ugly and looked and sounded completely fake. Spoiler... The idea that they were children was OK (i think Stephen king may have stolen and improved on this idea for his book Under the Dome!) but why oh why did they have to ruin a good movie with such farcical, nauseating aliens? Any belief in the film just went out of the window. I now think I may have watched it as a child but put it out of my mind because the end is so awful. What a shame as this could have been up there with the other 80's greats like Goonies and Big.

Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke), an alien-obsessed kid, dreams one night of a circuit board. Drawing out the circuit, he and his friends Wolfgang (River Phoenix) and Darren set it up, and discover they have been given the basis for a starship. Setting off in the ThunderRoad, as they name their ship, they find the aliens Ben hopes they would find... but are they what they seem? Joe Dante is an interesting character. Rising from the films of Roger Corman, he has made some of the great horror films -- "Howling", "Piranha" and "Gremlins". But he also has made some classic kid movies. While it is not strange for someone to make different kinds of films, it is interesting to see how one mind can approach two very different ideas. (Though we are treated to a newspaper that suggests "Explorers" exists in the same world as "Gremlins".) Along with "Flight of the Navigator", this was one of the two great kids-meet-aliens movies of the 1980s. You could possibly add "Mac and Me", but to include that in there would be giving it too much credit. Allegedly, the studio finished the film without Dante and what we see is basically a work print. If that is true, it is a darn fine work print. What more would Dante have done? Interestingly, a different but related theme was explored by Bob Balaban in his episode of "Amazing Stories" this same year (called "Fine Tuning"). They would make an excellent double feature.

When I was a kid, Explorers was one of my favorite movies. Ever since I can remember I've had a fascination with outer space and all the possibilities that are out there. That being said, Explorers was the perfect movie to me when I was a kid, but watching it again for the first time in fifteen years, things have changed. The story follows three young boys who start having weird dreams. They decide to build what they see in their dreams and to their surprise they build a spaceship. The boys are pulled into outer space, where they meet a group of aliens who are obsessed with our TV broadcasts and use different characters and scenes in order to communicate. As a kid, the story was magical, but as an adult, it was very lame. The hysterical aliens were unbelievably annoying and all the 'cool, futuristic' stuff is now simple classic eighties cheese. As for the cast, they are terrific, obviously, that's why two of the three boys grew up to be stars. Explorers was a favorite of mine as a kid, but that's really who it's aimed at. I watched it again because it's streaming and I loved it then, but watching it now kind of ruined it for me. This isn't like the Goonies, which is good any time at any age. Explorers is a kids movie that doesn't grow up as you do.