There’s careful, witty attention to detail-it’s not for nothing that the boys attend Charles M. All of it iscaptured in cinematographer John Hora’s clear images and reinforced by Jerry Goldsmith’s doughty, noble score.
Boyle), “Explorers” has a handsome, admirably unified look of youthful whimsy. From the whiz-bang visual effects from Marin County’s Industrial Light and Magic to its Ronald Searle-ish fantasy creatures (created by Rob Bottin) and Jules Verne-like alien space ship (designed by the veteran Robert F. With its carefully restored 19th-Century buildings, Northern California’s Petaluma provides the film’s nostalgic small-town setting. All three, however, are enormously likable, individual and natural under Dante’s direction. The establishing of the personalities of the three boys-handsome Ethan Hawke, the group’s dreamer bespectacled River Phoenix, the scientist among them, and deep-voiced Jason Presson, the sturdy survi vor from the wrong side of the tracks-and their building of their spacecraft is probably more fun for impressionable kids than the adults who might be with them. “Explorers,” pleasant as it is, is perhaps best left to youngsters because until its dreamlike finale, it offers little to engage grown-ups. You only wish that the entire film were this original.
Television’s chilling reflection of humanity is at the core of this fable of innocence, and it’s a provocative conceit.
ROB BOTTIN EXPLORERS 1985 TV
A fast montage of clips from old science fiction flicks shows the visitors what TV has taught the aliens about humans’ treatment of creatures from outer space. The young aliens recognize the goodness of their human counterparts, but television has given them a terrifying impression of adult earthlings. Encircled by giant, wrap-around TV screens, they have grown up on generations of reruns from Earth. These endearing, antennaed creatures, inhabitants of an eerie chambered nautilus of a spaceship, do impressions of everybody from Ed Sullivan to Little Richard.
ROB BOTTIN EXPLORERS 1985 HOW TO
Written by the first-time-out Eric Luke and directed by “Gremlins’ ” Joe Dante, “Explorers” takes a long time getting off the ground and really hasn’t a clue as to how to land again properly, but the confrontation between the boys and some crustacean-like aliens does catch us up. It’s also a truly gentle film, one of the precious few that actually is suitable for children. “Explorers” itself is bubble-thin, but it glides by gracefully on the charm of its three young heroes and their vividly envisioned adventure in space. This “bubble” can tear through walls like a bullet and expand to contain a quaint-looking spacecraft assembled from junk by the boys. Youngsters may forever be blowing bubbles, but there’s never been one like the translucent sphere that the three young “Explorers” (citywide) unexpectedly generate from their homemade computer.
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