Explorers

Though Steven Spielberg's name is nowhere to be found in EXPLORERS, all the familiar Spielbergian motifs of smart children, lovable space aliens, 1950s television shows, and topnotch special effects are firmly in place, propping up a shallow and creatively bankrupt film. The story opens with a computerized animation sequence, which, it turns out, is the dream of modern-age child Ethan Hawke. He quickly wakes up, then sketches out some of his dream's hardware. Using a walkie-talkie, Hawke contacts his sleeping pal River Phoenix, giving him the details. Phoenix, a pint-sized computer genius, suspects this dream is yet another in a series of mysterious signals from un...