SpaceCamp (Harry Winer, 1986)

This is the infamous space-shuttle-accident film released mere months after the Challenger disaster condemning it to box-office hell. Surprisingly, you can do far worse on a lazy Saturday afternoon than watch this solid-plus entertainment. Once you get over the premise of kids surviving an accidental launch into space, it generates some legit nail-biting tension. An 11-year-old Joaquin Phoenix is on board under the name Leaf Phoenix, many light years away from his 2019 Oscar. Kate Capshaw (a doppelganger for JoBeth Williams) plays an astronaut frustrated over never having gone on a space mission. The irony of an accident affording her the opportunity will not be lost on anyone with even surface knowledge of women at NASA. Most Americans cognizant in the 1980s will recognize the rest of the cast: Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, Tate Donovan, Tom Skerritt. There's also a robot named Jinx who brings problems. Forgettable but I was stunned by how much I dug it.

Afterward, the Mr. jokingly asked if it was one of the ten best films of 1986. But you know what? If we limit ourselves strictly to Hollywood product, it just might be, so pathetic was the decade for Hollywood cinema. It's quantum leaps better than the #1 box-office champ that year, Top Gun. For the good stuff, Manhunter. That's Life. Something Wild. Aliens. I have issues with Blue Velvet and The Fly (don't ask, Lynch/Cronenberg dorks). Haven't seen Platoon in a minute. And then, um, er, uh...SpaceCamp??

Grade: B+