cult film freak: SERIOUS MEL BROOKS PRESENTS 'SOLARBABIES' WITH JAMI GERTZ

Title: SOLARBABIES Cast: Jami Gertz, Jason Patric Year: 1986 Rating: **1/2

The 1980's post-apocalyptic SOLARBABIES seems inspired by MAD MAX (especially BEYOND THUNDERDOME) by the scorched-earth setting and ROLLERBALL for a skating game the titular kids play to relieve tension...

But it's actually an unspecified remake of Hammer Films' 1962 nuclear-cautionary thriller THESE ARE THE DAMNED as a group of futuristic orphans are politely held captive (where captivity is commonplace) while, completely monitored by grim adult superiors, they only THINK they're breaking the roles by going slightly outside allowed perimeters...

Claude Brooks and Peter Deluise in SOLARBABIES with Jami Gertz and Lucas Haas

For warden Charles Durning (like Alexander Knox in THE DAMNED), the minor rebellions are to boost morale while evil henchman Richard Jordan's Grock (ala Walter Gotell) wants all freedom gone, contrived or otherwise...

So when the kids do escape, rollerskating off into the desert/canyon terrain of unlimited limitations within various sand-dilapidated villages, Grock (with the aid of nefarious SUPERMAN villain Sarah Douglas) hires a pair of grungy assassins to rid the youth problem, once and for all...

Claude Brooks and Peter Deluise in SOLARBABIES with Jami Gertz

But the main plot aka McGuffin involves a glowing orb (think R2D2 as a whirling purple ball of animated light) that causes rain, even indoors, originally a legend having fallen from outer space to save our dying-of-thirst planet...

Herein discovered by the youngest, Lucas Haas, who shares it with teenagers Jason Patric as the stalwart lead, Peter DeLuise the muscle, James LeGros the glasses-wearing brain, Claude Brooks the token black, Adrian Pasdar the long-haired spiritual warrior and outright gorgeous Jami Gertz pretending to be an average girl-next-door once again...

Actually pretty decent special-effects for the future of SOLARBABIES

SOLARBABIES starts off intriguing, with suspenseful bulwarks (including a blond bully) within the rudimentary location and a decent enough spin on the whole end-of-the-world-that-might-have-a-cure motif...

But at one point (and far too early) the spontaneous action slows while the intriguing premise abandons the kind of offbeat creativity needed to garner a legitimate sci-fi cult following...

How Mel Brooks hid his identity for non-comedies like SOLARBABIES

And it doesn't help matters being surprisingly not that entirely god-awful (with Mel Brooks ghost-producing during his ironic THE ELEPHANT MAN/DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS/THE FLY phase)...

After all, legitimacy can be kryptonite for bad-movie-fans, outnumbering fans of good ones, leaving SOLARBABIES in a purgatory wasteland of long-gone video rentals and sporadic midnight cable screenings.