Los exploradores

It just occurred to me, this would be a GREAT movie to do a fan edit on. Tone the goofy stuff way down, etc. I just might try it...

It's rather notorious for having one of the worst third acts because it started so wonderfully. Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix teamed together, the cop that wasn't a bad guy, etc etc.

Then-- they met the aliens. Terrible terrible.

Hawke's performance when they're on the alien ship is very authentically "this sucks." It's sad, but it's how we feel too. And his performance is so spot on, I'm skeptical studio interference impacted this movie as much as the director claims.

It's not just the alien sequence is so tonally inconsistent, the pop culture references the aliens use are 20 to 30 years to old for the target demographic. I was about the age of these kids when it came out, and even now am hopelessly bored during the sequence because though I generally recognize the pop references, it's only in a clinical way.

I will give it one prop though-- the alien ship act is so bizarre, when they come back to earth, it really feels like they've been somewhere, for a much longer time than they actually were.