Emilio Estevez's OTHER bad mid-80's movie (the other being MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE) has no plot that pushes things forward and barely anything interesting happening other than Estevez's "I'm so cool I don't have to do anything interesting" schtick. Harry Dean Stanton tries desperately to be another Cult Movie type father-figure guy, but's he's just not memorable. The movie tries to appeal to teen audiences by making some jabs at suburbia, but the effort is simply too small.
But the real weaknesses are the way the Sci-Fi elements are shown and the main character. I know I'm going to seem like a square for saying this, but there simply is nothing to like about the guy. He acts like some punk, but he himself admits he's a bored suburban kid, he treats his sexual partners like trash, he doesn't do anything to help anyone else. Just a waste of life who oddly gets rewarded at the end, probably to appeal to the worthless sections of teen audiences.
The Sci-Fi bits really just seem tacked on and very weak. It all boils down to a trunk and a rotten flying car! Geez, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had better Sci-Fi.
But the real weaknesses are the way the Sci-Fi elements are shown and the main character. I know I'm going to seem like a square for saying this, but there simply is nothing to like about the guy. He acts like some punk, but he himself admits he's a bored suburban kid, he treats his sexual partners like trash, he doesn't do anything to help anyone else. Just a waste of life who oddly gets rewarded at the end, probably to appeal to the worthless sections of teen audiences.
The Sci-Fi bits really just seem tacked on and very weak. It all boils down to a trunk and a rotten flying car! Geez, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had better Sci-Fi.