|
The overture pulls back from a TV screen playing The War of the Worlds and then into the dreaming teenage subconscious, the rest unfolds as a space opera brought to junior-high size. Sci-fi buff (Ethan Hawke), basement prodigy (River Phoenix) and quasi-punk (Jason Presson), interstellar seekers in suburbia. "You believe everything you see in the movies?" "Not everything..." The call from the unknown is an electronic board in the clouds accessed through reveries, the vessel within its bubble is an amusement-park ride rescued from the junkyard. (The maiden flight crashes a drive-in, where in the audience a jock bores his date with his knowledge of "traveling mattes.") Joe Dante's earnest and acerbic sides in fascinating conflict, a fond build-up for a caustic punchline. The helicopter marshal chasing the young protagonists is as obsessed as them, and, when he witnesses their liftoff, Dick Miller's lovely turn breaks the stern adult front with a crinkly smile. The adolescent imagination and the postmodern mystique, aliens that could be "something we can't even imagine" are instead pop-detritus mirrors. Receiving the earthlings with a barrage of jingles and soundbites, the extraterrestrials are channel-surfing blobs recycling media minutiae before a vast wall of static. (Robert Picardo and Leslie Rickert provide the blaring/cooing vocals behind the bulbous green latex.) Bugs Bunny, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Little Richard, The Price Is Right... "Would you do me a favor? Would you raise my antenna?" Goofballs joyride while the parents are away, cosmic longing crashes down to earth and sinks in the river. Hodges is concurrent with Morons from Outer Space, an even harsher satire. "And we didn't even get to tell you the secrets of the universe." With Amanda Peterson, Dana Ivey, James Cromwell, Meshach Taylor, and Mary Kay Place.
--- Fernando F. Croce |