While I remember first seeing this movie as a still very young kid, this is not one of those movies that I grew up with. As a matter of fact, I think I had only seen it just once, prior to my recent viewing of it, a couple of days ago. It therefor also isn't one of those movies I have fond and warm memories of, though I imaging this would have been a movie that I would have loved to watch, when I was still a young kid.

Problem with most of the recent kids movies nowadays is that they are too fluffy and play things far too safe. They really aren't willing to take any risks, at any department. The stories are generic, the characters all bland stereotypes and the humor too predictable. They besides love to feature all sort of moralistic messages in them, often combined with some forced drama and emotions. In other words, they really don't know how to connect to its younger audience anymore! The film-makers don't seem to remember how it was like to be a young kid and the things that excited you and made you happy and were interested in at the time. This movie luckily didn't forget about any of these things though. It seems to understand kids and its truly written and directed with the right type of audience constantly in mind. It's an adventurous and also imaginative movie, that in no way resembles a realistic movie but what kid ever wanted to have a realistic adventure?

That's the biggest reason why this movie is loved that much; it's an adventure movie with the type of adventure in it that young kids would love to have gone on, alongside with the goonies. The kids are the heroes in this, as well as the smart ones, while most of the adults are of course the clumsy and not too smart villains. Good thing about the movie is that it also isn't afraid to be a somewhat darker and more serious one at times. This at the same time also makes it all the more obvious how serious this movie was taking its target audience. The movie is not afraid to show you death and exaggerated violence. And there is nothing wrong with a kids movie being a genuinely scary and threatening one at times. It's all part of growing up really, so why shouldn't kids movies be allowed to show you any of these elements? It in a way gives the movie realism and ensures that its audience feels more invested in both its story and all of its many main characters.

Another thing that makes this movie a somewhat realistic feeling one is the way how all of the kids are acting in this. They truly act and behave like real kids. They respond to certain situations just like other normal kid would do in real life and perhaps more importantly; they talk like real kids. So yes, that means that there also is some cursing in this movie and boys being boys to each other and to girls. It's an extremely quotable movie actually.

It's a movie that's made and got approached just like any other major studio production. And that's no big surprise really, seeing all of the big names that were involved with making this movie. Director Richard Donner, producer Steven Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus, these all are some big names from the industry, who really understand film-making and never do half work. This all is really something this movie benefits from as well.

Now, I won't pretend as if this is the greatest adventure movie or best kids movie ever made though. It's still lacking in some ways, mainly in its story department. It's a tad bit too simplistic and straightforward at times for my taste and I was also definitely liking the movie better when it constantly was set at different locations, rather than just below ground, inside a hidden and dark cavern. I don't know, it just took away some of the fun for me and made the movie a bit too repetitive at times.

Luckily there is plenty of good humor and fun characters to enjoy in this. It's a genuinely funny and charming movie, which is also thanks to its great cast. Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano and Anne Ramsey are great villains in this and the young cast involves some now big and famous names, such as Sean Astin and Josh Brolin, most notably.

This movie is some good '80's fun with also a good soundtrack to support it. I really liked it, though if you grew up with this movie you probably want to- and also should add an extra point to my rating.

7/10

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(Review originally written at 6 September 2007)

Oh man, this movie was toe-cringing bad. Bad look, awful story...the list of good things is shorter than the list of bad things about this movie.

Yes sure it's supposed to be a comedy and all but something tells me that this movie was supposed to be the real deal. The movie most certainly does not start of as a comedy but more as an adventurous movie with fun elements put in it. You can especially tells they were serious with this by the acting, that was in a serious and non-comical way, with the exception of a couple of over-the-top sequences obviously. It seemed to be me that at first they tried to make a real and serious adventurous science-fiction movie, perhaps even a franchise but soon began to noticed how bad it all was and simply decided to insert some more and deliberately overdone comical sequence, to make the movie seem more like a comedy and prevent it from turning into a complete disastrous mess.

The movie is a weird attempt to mix adventurous swashbuckling pirate movies with serious science-fiction action. The movie was obviously inspired by the "Star Wars" movies and its success. The movie isn't even too ashamed to copy entire sequences and even the way the story progresses, sets, characters and robots show similarities. They tried to hide this by putting in some obviously spoofing sequences but I'm not falling for it. So the movie is not even original on its own, despite its original concept. You can say that this movie is a poor man's "Spaceballs", without even really being fully a spoof.

The movie is bad looking, with some video games special effects (in some sequences even literally), awful looking costumes (coat of mail and swords in outer space?). The sound is at times even laughable. Seems like they shot some sequences without sound and then forgot to add all of the required sounds later again in post-production. the mixing is also really bad. They tried to conceal this by putting the sound down to a minimum at times and by tuning up the Bruce Broughton musical score.

At times the movie is so busy trying to make the movie look humorous that it totally forgets to tell the story. It makes the story of the movie seems extremely messy and poorly written, with an almost completely undeveloped main plot. It also doesn't help to make the movie really ever flow. Lots of thing don't get explained and some are even dropped after a while. The movie begins as a 'pirate' movie, who constantly are looking and steal water, since its scarcely and there is only one planet in the entire galaxy remaining with water on it (yeah right!). However this plot line gets soon abandoned, especially in the middle part of the movie, in which the movie seems to become a totally different one, with different motivations. It's just like the one weird and bad, silly sequence after the other, without really making a click. It also keeps the characters way too shallow and uninteresting to care about.

Sad to see that actors like John Carradine, Anjelica Huston and a still young and unknown Ron Perlman were attached to this disastrous movie.

OK I admit that I liked some of the moments, especially the ending when they go through the time-warp was original and fun but really, non of this all was enough to save the movie.

I didn't even liked the movie in a campy kind of way.

2/10

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