Explorers is a fun and inventive science fiction comedy that just happens to lend good time to being a cool, coming of age tale covering a number of adolescents hobbling along in lives chock-full of social awkwardness; high-school strife and imperfect relationships with parents. We enjoy the places director Joe Dante comes to take us; that pleasing sensation one often gets when a rather ambitious, but really satisfying, science fiction enters its final act and we are allowed to anticipate the heading into a proverbial 'unknown' promising a forecast of creativity and wild ideas. Such a sensation is prominent here just as it might have been in, albeit to a greater extent, something such as Kubrick's masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey or a well made Star Trek sequel feeding off creativity and imagination, but with the key ingredients of adventure and threat bubbling away somewhere in the background.
The film follows three boys and their eventual venturing into the skies, which furthermore creeps off into the exploring of what's beyond that. The kids are all of around the same age; their teenage years still ahead of them and each are of a distinct sort: one of them is a little bit nerdy, what with his expertise in science and necessity to wear glasses; one of them is a leaner, harder boy seemingly with a pathway to being a bit of a 'jock', whereas the other appears to borrow a little bit from the pair of them and fall somewhere in-between. Ben (Hawke) is the latter of those three, a kid with a wild imagination and a quirky tendency to fall asleep during these warm summer nights with the windows wide open and the television still blasting out old sci-fi movies such is his nature to read; live and breathe both science fiction and extra terrestrials to the point of exhaustion. During these opening scenes, Dante's focusing on Byron Haskin's original War of the Worlds adaptation playing out on the TV alerts us to one of two routes accessible to filmmakers creating movies about integration with intergalatic species; the Earth-levelling option rife in this self-aware instance, but Dante's film pleasingly coming to formulate into the second choice of the strains of attempted communication or integration with such species.
We sense young Ben's rapport with local, and fellow high-schooler, Wolfgang (Phoenix) is close; both of them with the capability to two-way-radio to the other, in the middle of the night if needs be, for whatever the reason if there is a necessity to talk. Wolfgang lives with a dysfunctional family of German origin; his home's basement a convert of sorts into a laboratory allowing him to experiment and explore within certain scientific realms. His life away from his home is rife with problems of bullying and clumsiness around others, with a real sense imbued within proceedings of Wolfgang not being particularly attuned to this world or life or existence, in spite of the fact we sense his intelligence and drive to succeed – characteristics that just do not appear to be embraced where he presently is. The third boy, a certain Darren (Presson), is nonplussed; a boy not sharing the interest in outer space and such things as the other two. He uses Darren and Wolfgang's presence as a means to hang with people if it means getting away from his equally dysfunctional, but more aggressive, home-life – the sort of home-life that unfolds within an abode which backs onto a train-line seemingly always playing host to one of those freight trains whose horns we always hear whenever the film is unfolding near it.
After a flurry of strange dreams and whizz-bang breakthroughs in Wolfgang's lab, the kids uncover a functioning orb-like spacecraft capable of taking off and gliding through the skies: something which agitates the local air traffic; causes chaos at drive-in cinemas, in what is a fun nod to 50's B-movies of old and, in spite of hitting upon the technological breakthrough of the decade, causes Darren to react with glee that they may now be able to spy on girls of their age. We find wonderful the manner in which Dante takes what appears to be the beginnings of a high-school comedy about kids ambling through their existences, striving to get past with school work and such, and drops the heady item of what is essentially a space ship flush into their hands to veer the film off down another route entirely.
The film is about the responsibility that these three must take on upon discovering such an item; an identifying of the dangers inherent therein, and how it affects what constituted as their previous lives in the form of performing in school and doing their utmost to put time into the project over everything else. We enjoy the fun and games of the opening acts, the humour and the wondrous manner the three child actors bounce off one another in dealing with this quite remarkable discovery; there is heart and a sense of danger to the film's proceedings, a moment catching us off guard arriving in the form of a scene featuring Ben drawing up his will in case anything should happen to him on the eve the kids decide to take their pod-space ship on a proper journey. Danger lurks in the fact we realise Ben is unaware of what Carbon Dioxide is; not good, if you're on the cusp of going where few have ever gone before. The film is fun; well made; neatly unfolded and spins through this charming tale of youngsters pooling together to occupy their time, that just happens to go places we sit there in awe at whilst waiting for what might unravel next. It is a film tough to truly dislike; no doubt pleasurable for those of the ages of the characters therein, but with enough of a grown-up sensibility about it to keep it away from being the unappealing slog to adults.
The film follows three boys and their eventual venturing into the skies, which furthermore creeps off into the exploring of what's beyond that. The kids are all of around the same age; their teenage years still ahead of them and each are of a distinct sort: one of them is a little bit nerdy, what with his expertise in science and necessity to wear glasses; one of them is a leaner, harder boy seemingly with a pathway to being a bit of a 'jock', whereas the other appears to borrow a little bit from the pair of them and fall somewhere in-between. Ben (Hawke) is the latter of those three, a kid with a wild imagination and a quirky tendency to fall asleep during these warm summer nights with the windows wide open and the television still blasting out old sci-fi movies such is his nature to read; live and breathe both science fiction and extra terrestrials to the point of exhaustion. During these opening scenes, Dante's focusing on Byron Haskin's original War of the Worlds adaptation playing out on the TV alerts us to one of two routes accessible to filmmakers creating movies about integration with intergalatic species; the Earth-levelling option rife in this self-aware instance, but Dante's film pleasingly coming to formulate into the second choice of the strains of attempted communication or integration with such species.
We sense young Ben's rapport with local, and fellow high-schooler, Wolfgang (Phoenix) is close; both of them with the capability to two-way-radio to the other, in the middle of the night if needs be, for whatever the reason if there is a necessity to talk. Wolfgang lives with a dysfunctional family of German origin; his home's basement a convert of sorts into a laboratory allowing him to experiment and explore within certain scientific realms. His life away from his home is rife with problems of bullying and clumsiness around others, with a real sense imbued within proceedings of Wolfgang not being particularly attuned to this world or life or existence, in spite of the fact we sense his intelligence and drive to succeed – characteristics that just do not appear to be embraced where he presently is. The third boy, a certain Darren (Presson), is nonplussed; a boy not sharing the interest in outer space and such things as the other two. He uses Darren and Wolfgang's presence as a means to hang with people if it means getting away from his equally dysfunctional, but more aggressive, home-life – the sort of home-life that unfolds within an abode which backs onto a train-line seemingly always playing host to one of those freight trains whose horns we always hear whenever the film is unfolding near it.
After a flurry of strange dreams and whizz-bang breakthroughs in Wolfgang's lab, the kids uncover a functioning orb-like spacecraft capable of taking off and gliding through the skies: something which agitates the local air traffic; causes chaos at drive-in cinemas, in what is a fun nod to 50's B-movies of old and, in spite of hitting upon the technological breakthrough of the decade, causes Darren to react with glee that they may now be able to spy on girls of their age. We find wonderful the manner in which Dante takes what appears to be the beginnings of a high-school comedy about kids ambling through their existences, striving to get past with school work and such, and drops the heady item of what is essentially a space ship flush into their hands to veer the film off down another route entirely.
The film is about the responsibility that these three must take on upon discovering such an item; an identifying of the dangers inherent therein, and how it affects what constituted as their previous lives in the form of performing in school and doing their utmost to put time into the project over everything else. We enjoy the fun and games of the opening acts, the humour and the wondrous manner the three child actors bounce off one another in dealing with this quite remarkable discovery; there is heart and a sense of danger to the film's proceedings, a moment catching us off guard arriving in the form of a scene featuring Ben drawing up his will in case anything should happen to him on the eve the kids decide to take their pod-space ship on a proper journey. Danger lurks in the fact we realise Ben is unaware of what Carbon Dioxide is; not good, if you're on the cusp of going where few have ever gone before. The film is fun; well made; neatly unfolded and spins through this charming tale of youngsters pooling together to occupy their time, that just happens to go places we sit there in awe at whilst waiting for what might unravel next. It is a film tough to truly dislike; no doubt pleasurable for those of the ages of the characters therein, but with enough of a grown-up sensibility about it to keep it away from being the unappealing slog to adults.