Solarbabies (Film Review)

1986 MGM Entertainment Co
Directed by: Alan Johnson; Written by: Walon Green and Douglas Anthony Metrov
Starring: Richard Jordan, Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Lukas Haas, and Charles Durning
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 94 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 4/10

The future sucks. Everything is one giant desert, and kids are forced to live in orphanages that serve as little more than indoctrination prisons. There, they're taught to support some evil corporation called the Eco Protectorate, which for some reason has control of all the Earth's remaining water. One day, Daniel, one of the youngest kids in a group that for some reason calls themselves the Solarbabies, finds a glowing orb that he says calls itself, "Bodhi," which seems to have nebulous magical powers. The Solarbabies have a bunch of fun with Bodhi, including using him as a hockey puck and breakdancing with him, but then Daniel wanders off the next morning, and it's up to the Solarbabies to skate, yes ROLLER SKATE, across the desert to find him before the Eco Protectorate's goons do. Along the way, the Solarbabies will meet a bunch of wacky, mostly kid-friendly post-apocalyptic characters, except for the decidedly unkid-friendly sadomasochistic torture robot, Terminack. Will the Solarbabies find Daniel and Bodhi? Will they evade the Eco Protectorate and Terminack? Will even the smallest detail of one single plot point in this entire film make even one modicum of sense?
1986's Solarbabies is an immensely watchable 94-minute slice of cinematic excrement. At no point does it justify its existence or pass even the most basic test of logic, to a degree that it comes back around to reached that hallowed "so bad it's good" ground. The film's young actors are actually very good, despite the ridiculousness of their roles and the film they're contained in, the lead actors, Jami Gertz and Jason Patric, having so much chemistry, they were reunited just a year later in the much better The Lost Boys. The ridiculous sight of these fresh and eager youngsters roller skating through the sand is strangely lovable, as is the goofy S&M gear that citizens of this desert world inexplicably wear but for the simple fact that they might have been picked up from an Aussie thrift shop after Mad Max wrapped shooting. Everything is just so entertainingly dumb that I found I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. This is the kind of excruciatingly stupid good time even Terminack could get behind, pun very much intended.